Flames of Burden
by Sakura Katakini
Summary: In this sequel to Return of Astera, Sailor Astera's trapped soul is revived by a new dark power which emerges unexpectedly. Will Sailor Astera be awakened as a reborn soldier of love and hope, or will her dark past reveal a new era of destruction?
1. Chapter 1

**Flames of Burden**

**A Sailor Moon Fanfiction**

**Story & Original Characters © 2007 Sarah Ruth Forde  
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon © 1992 Naoko Takeuchi/Kodansha, TOEI Animation.**

Chapter I

It was like being asleep, but not completely. More like that state just before sleep, when the mind is free and floating, without a firm grasp on consciousness, but still aware of its own idling existence. She felt aware of her own presence, but she couldn't feel her body or hear her breathing. She felt enveloped in protection, but heavy; it seemed as though, even if she had eyes to open, they would be too tired to see. Still, it was warm and comfortable as she drifted, hearing a beautiful beating pulse, rhythmic, and life giving. She didn't know who or where she was, but it felt something like home.

___________________________

Usagi woke up to a pleasant, sunny morning. The birds had roused her from her weekend slumber, gently shaking her loose from a foggy dream of which she could recall very little. The lingering feelings left her both happy and refreshed, and with little to do this Saturday morning, Usagi decided to lay in bed just a few more minutes and soak up the comfort of total relaxation. Within a few seconds, however, she found herself quite bored. Hopping out from the covers, she hastily dressed in a cute white collared top and a fun, spring green ruffled skirt. She picked up a silver chain lying on her dresser and fastened the clasp behind her neck as a small, amethyst pendant swung around the chain and came to rest just above her collarbones. Her hair was quick to go up in its usual style, and she was on her way down to catch some food just as Luna was coming in the window.

"Have a nice morning sleeping in?" Luna asked.

"For your information, it was wonderful," Usagi replied with firm resolve, assuming Luna had been implying she ought to have been doing otherwise.

"No need to be fierce with me," Luna replied, picking up on her tone.

"Oh, sorry Luna," Usagi said, smiling as she reached down to pick up her black feline friend. "I guess I'm just not used to anything but sarcasm from you."

"Oh, really?" Luna replied, a bit sarcastically indeed.

On the way towards the kitchen, Usagi was overtaken by her brother Shingo, running by with a tennis racket, a baseball glove, and a Frisbee. "Watch it, brat!" she yelled, her pigtails chasing him in his wake.

Shingo paused for a moment to stick a little angry pink tongue out at his big sister before shouting goodbye to his mother and running out the front door. It hung slightly ajar as Usagi reached the end of the hall.

"Usagi, could you get that?" Ikuko asked her daughter, peeking out from the kitchen.

"I'm going out too mom," she replied.

"Oh? Have you had anything to eat?"

"It's almost lunch anyway," Usagi smiled, "I will get something on the way." Her mother bid her a good day and continued her spring cleaning. Usagi was thankful she'd refrained from vacuuming in the earlier hours of the day.

"So, what are your plans for today?" Luna asked, hopping from Usagi's shoulder and walking briskly beside her.

"I guess I will head over to Crown," the blonde replied. "See if anyone's around. Though I think most of the girls were busy this weekend." Usagi paused for a moment and her smile faded a bit as they walked along. "They don't remember anything about the battle," Usagi finally said with some despondency.

"Yes, I know," Luna said, "though, they might still recover some memories with time."

"Maybe it's best they don't," Usagi said, placing her fingers lightly on the necklace pendant. She felt a chill all of a sudden, with memories so clear to her flooding back again. The battle against the dark senshi had been exhausting: mentally, emotionally and physically. In some ways, Usagi felt like she had no one that understood how hard it had really been. Even Mamoru had little to no recollection of most of the events leading up to that final battle against Sailor Astera. Thankfully, Usagi had found the strength within herself to heal the misguided soul, but something still lingered in her mind and kept her wearing the amethyst stone that she had found that day. There was still a presence around it, she thought, a connection to something. It hadn't been a coincidence to have found its glittering form there on the ice.

While thinking about this, Usagi and Luna made their way silently into the crowded district area and across a side street. Unfortunately, Usagi misjudged the height of the curb on the other side and her right toe caught the edge of the curb. Luna had to keep herself from shouting out as Usagi was jolted back into reality by this sudden loss of balance as she flailed face first for the pavement. Thankfully, a strong pair of sturdy arms caught hold of her.

"Imagine if I weren't always around when you got yourself into trouble," a familiar voice said, laughing. "Hi Luna."

Luna meowed pleasantly, relieved that her klutz of a soldier was fortunate enough to have a knight in shining armor.

"Mamo-chan!" Usagi squealed, grasping her lover tightly and burying her face in his chest. "Where are you going?"

He laughed and held her away a bit as passers by cast curious eyes in their direction, "I am going to the National Science Museum in Ueno Park for a lecture, would you like to come along?" They started walking together opposite the direction Usagi had been headed. Luna hopped up on Usagi's shoulder again to avoid all the moving feet on the sidewalk.

"A lecture?" Usagi tired to sound interested, but a lecture on a Saturday didn't sound like a good time to a teenager on the brink of a educational breakdown. Still, an hour or so in a dark room with Mamoru might not be so bad, and if it was really boring she could always fall asleep on him. "What kind of lecture?"

"There's a German specialist coming to speak about theoretical solar and extra solar planets, and an exhibition on the latest discoveries about the early formation of our solar system. Usagi, are you listening?"

"Sorry!" she said, pulling her attention away from a dairy shoppe window displaying seven new flavors of milkshakes. "You know, that sounds so interesting! I totally want to come!"

Mamoru sighed with a smile as their made their way, arm in arm, to the Azabu Juuban subway station. Luna mentioned quietly to Usagi that she had better things to do than wait around for them outside the Science Museum, so the two made plans to meet up later in the day at Hikawa Shrine. Luna ran off on her own in the direction from which they had come. Meanwhile, Usagi's mind turned to other concerns such as how she was going to fit food into the trip from Juuban to Ueno Park.

"Mamo-chan," she said coyly as they approached the stairs to the subway platform, "Could we stop and get something yummy? I missed breakfast this morning."

"Sleeping in late again?" he asked playfully.

"Ugh! What's with everyone? It's Saturday!" Usagi whined, yanking on her lover's arm and pouting her big, blue eyes up at him. A few moments later, she was happily enjoying a large, salty pretzel while the bright, intermediate lights of the underground tunnel whizzed by outside the subway car. It was not the healthiest of lunches, but it was certainly delicious. They shared a lemonade with one straw. Usagi could care less where she was going. In fact, at that point, she really couldn't recall their destination.

"This is our stop," Mamoru said. Usagi licked the salt off her finger tips and sucked down the last of the lemonade as they hopped off the train and made their way up the polished aluminum stairs. A large sign at the top of the first flight indicated the direction of the Science Museum, so the two turned left and ascended another set of stairs.

The light outside was brilliant and Usagi shielded her eyes as they adjusted. The wind off the ocean whipped her pigtails around violently as they made their way towards the large glass façade. Its faceted surface reflected the bright blue sky above as sunlight poured into the space. As they approached, Usagi marveled at the sight, for seemed as if the whole building was made of glass. She looked up in awe at the transparent walls and ceiling as they entered the building and crossed the wide foyer into a hallway and down a short flight of stairs. In some ways, it reminded her of Crystal Tokyo, the great city of the future she had seen in the battle with the Black Moon. The museum was practically vacant. Mamoru had mentioned to her that regular tours didn't run on Saturdays and the rooms were mainly reserved for special events. He had found out about this lecture from one of his professors.

When they entered the lecture hall, the lights had already been turned down. Usagi hesitated at the doorway, but Mamoru's comforting grasp led her into a row of chairs near the back of the small amphitheater. The rows of chairs in the room encircled a small round elevated stage fed by a ramp ascending from a lower level. On it, a tall blonde man in white suit jacket stood addressing the audience from a podium. Behind him, charts and display boards were arranged for the presentation. Usagi looked at some of the graphs and charts and felt a bit overwhelmed.

"There's no way I'm going to get any of this," she thought to herself as she made herself comfortable against Mamrou's shoulder. After her eyes had adjusted to the light, she saw the room was full of academic elite and professionals. She felt a little out of place and a bit foolish in her casual, albeit fashionable, spring outfit. The man on stage spoke in a deep voice with an accent Usagi could not place.

"Professor Takensei," Mamoru whispered, "my Astronomy teacher."

Usagi nodded and tried to pay attention.

"Therefore," the Professor was saying, "our exploration of these theoretical planets is essential to our understanding of the development of this solar system. Here to explain in greater detail, Berlin's own award-winning space theorist, Anya von Frauke."

The audience greeted Miss von Frauke with polite applause as she walked briskly up the ramp and thanked the Professor with a western handshake. Her hair was thick and dark, pulled into a tightly knotted bun at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were deeply colored, but hinted blue. They were heavy with makeup, contrasting with her tan linen jacket and bright blue collared shirt. Usagi felt chill suddenly, as if something about her entrance had changed the room around her. She shifted her eyes to Mamoru, wondering if he also sensed something strange about the atmosphere. Mamoru's cobalt eyes were fix on the stage but he was not clapping. His grip remained firm on Usagi's hand and she told herself that it was likely just a shift in the air from the lower level entrance. Setting back into her chair, Usagi considered how upset Mamoru might be if she were to fall asleep and accidentally drool on his nice, pressed shirt.

The lecture began, and Usagi felt more and more lost in the analysis of planetary orbits and the calculations for the tilt of the axes. She began to let her attention drift, even though every time she met the woman's eyes she felt a little uneasy. "Paranoid," she thought to herself, "not everyone that feels a little creepy is going to be an enemy." After nearly an hour, Usagi was floating in a mildly happy place halfway between snuggly heaven and an uncomfortable lecture hall chair.

"In theory," Miss von Frauke was saying, "these planets may still exist today. The formation of our solar system is not a concrete history and there are many factors that have yet gone unexplained. These mysterious planets have orbits so erratic that they are often too wild to detect. In addition to their unconventional paths through space, the physical makeup of these planets may allow them to go undetected by conventional means. However, it is likely that these planets harbor great resources of power, and perhaps even evolved forms of human life."

The crowd murmured uncomfortably and a few people laughed. Usagi's attention slowly phased back as she sat up and moved her right foot, now asleep, out from underneath her.

"These beings, these possibly extra-solar entities, would be superior to those here on Earth. They would harness the power of their planet, in tune with its energies, and able to perform acts beyond our understanding." As Miss von Frauke spoke, her voice became excited, even panicky as a few members of the audience got up to leave. But suddenly, for Usagi, the topic seemed too specific and too close for comfort. Powerful beings from a dark planet? Well, that was certainly more than a theory to her.

"There are many names for these planets: Planet X, Vulcan, Nemesis, Astera. Many theories and many possibilities, but one fact: there is evidence that they have been through this solar system before and it is very likely that they will return with a vengeance!"

"A vengeance?!" Usagi whispered in shock to Mamoru, "Nemesis? Astera?!"

"This is why I wanted to come," he said, as the lights came up and the place began to empty out. "I thought the topic to be a little suspicious when the Professor mentioned it." Only a few fans of Miss von Frauke remained to gather around her near the stage ask questions, so while they debated their theories further, Usagi clung to Mamoru's arm as they walked over to the professor.

"Interesting topic, wasn't it?" Professor Takensei asked as they approached. "Who is your friend? An avid astronomer I hope!"

"She's mostly interested in lunar study," Mamoru said very seriously. "Tell me Professor, where did you meet Miss von Frauke?"

"Hmm, let's see," the older man said, rubbing his fingers against his chin. "Had to have been at the International Association of Astrological Theory convention in Germany five years ago. The young woman made quite an impression on me. I know the topic is hard to swallow for some folks, but the more we broach these unconventional theories, the more acceptance I think they will gain."

Usagi glanced over at Anya who was now smiling and signing autographs under the light of a cameraman from a local news network. A lean tabloid reporter had lingered after the lecture to obtain a one-on-one exchange with what his boss had deemed a 'foreign nut case.' "Do you have any doubts about your theories at this point, Miss von Frauke?" the reporter was asking.

"None at all," Anya replied, "The remnants of the effects of these planets can be seen throughout the solar system. It is just now a matter of determining which of them still exist today and which have been eliminated by other causes."

"Is it true that there is one planet for which you have stated you have physical evidence?"

Anya hesitated, but smiled, "It's true. I am not yet ready to release the details, but I have hard physical evidence that the Asteroid planet, what was know as Astera, did in fact exist. I hope to release the report on its formation and destruction, as well as information about its moon later this year. No more questions, thank you." She spoke very seriously on the matter, not realizing that the reporter had been mocking her through the entire interview.

Mamoru and the Professor finished their conversation and Mamoru quickly led Usagi out of the hall towards the entrance. She glanced over her shoulder to see Anya retreating in the opposite direction.

"There has to be some connection," Usagi said as they walked away from the museum, "but I don't understand why this girl from Germany would know anything about Sailor Astera."

"There might be no connection," Mamoru said, "but we better just be ready if there is." Usagi sighed and continued to cling to his jacket at the sky began to grow dark with impending storm clouds. Saturday felt suddenly solemn.

The ride back to Juuban was very quiet. Usagi was nervous, her hands absentmindedly toying with the small pendant on the chain around her neck. After a while, a question began itching at her mind.

"Mamo-chan, how much of the battle do you remember, really?" she asked. The subway car jostled the slightly back and forth as they passed under the busy Tokyo streets. Mamoru didn't answer for a moment, then sighed.

"Very little," he said, and he seemed he would offer no more than that.

When they left the subway station, they crossed the street and passed in front of Crown.

"Usako, is it okay if I take off for a while? There's something I want to look into."

"Are you okay?" she asked, with worry bursting from her eyes. "Can I help?"

He shook his head, "I will let you know if anything turns up. Look, there's Minako upstairs."

Usagi looked up and saw the blonde's back pressed against one of the second floor windows, her bright red bow bouncing up and down with laughter. "Okay," she said, releasing his hand, "I will go tell them about the lecture." Her eyes remained full of concern. "Please don't do anything dangerous without me," she said firmly.

"Don't you trust me?" he said in a teasing tone.

"Of course," Usagi replied. "It's the rest of the world I'm worried about."

As Mamoru left Crown, he began thinking about Usagi's question some more. "How much of the battle do you remember, really?" His answer had been honest; there was very little he could recall. There were just sensations and feelings of fear and anger. His frustration with being unable to recall the details were compounded by his history of such amnesic episodes. If his brain was blocking it out, he would have to find the answers through his hands.

When he arrived at the skating rink, he could see the reconstruction had been more of a demolition. The explosion from the battle had torn off the roof and blew out most of the exterior walls. The remainder of the structure had been knocked down and crews were clearing away debris while the plans for the new rink were drawn up.

Mamoru walked the perimeter of the emergency barriers, watching the progress of the work. Various construction workers noticed him but paid him little attention. Curious townspeople and media had been poking around the area on and off for the last few weeks, though now that the bulk of the building was gone, visitors were less frequent. Mamoru stopped near a group of younger looking workers to listen to the conversation.

"So they say it was a propane leak in the basement storage room that caused all this," one man said to another, as they worked to maneuver a large chunk of drywall into a dumpster.

"I wonder what sparked it?" the younger man said, as he tossed another piece of plasterboard into the large green bin.

The older man noticed Mamoru lingering and waved him on, "Hey, you can look around okay, but don't cross the barriers."

Mamoru nodded to the man and continued along the perimeter. His ears stayed with the conversation for a few steps.

"He was well dressed for a rubber-necker," the younger one said quietly.

"Maybe he's from the Tokko," the older one said. "I heard a few guys saying this explosion was really caused by angry space aliens." The two men laughed as they finished up the pile and raindrops began to fall steadily. Thickening dark clouds overhead made it clear the workday would be cut short. Once they were out of sight, Mamoru hopped the concrete barrier and moved towards a pile of rubble. A large piece of concrete, too large for the men to lift on their own, was lodged at an angle on the ground. A large crane was positioned beside it. Mamoru could only assume they planned to move it the following day. The surface facing him was smooth, with subtle shifts in the grey gradient becoming dark under the rainfall. Where it had been broken from the floor, pipe from the cooling system protruded into the air. Mamoru placed his palm against the cool, wet surface and closed his eyes.

At first, he could sense only the water that had been frozen solid across the surface not long ago. The concrete remembered the ice. The frozen sensation passed into a sense of darkness and a steadily growing tension, a terror. Then in came to him quickly: the hours spent tied up in the storage closet; the assault on the other men; Usagi held captive as Astera manipulated the rink to form the pool in which he drowned; Usagi's pleading eyes as he had slipped below the surface of water that should've been only a few inches deep.

Mamoru stumbled backwards away from the stone with his arms across his face, gasping for air. How had she done that?

"Hey! What are you doing over there?" a voice yelled. Mamoru, disoriented and off his mark, turned to see the older man from before walking towards him angrily. "It's too dangerous in here, get out!"

Mamoru turned, leapt over the barrier, and took off down the street, dizzy with the panic of his vision. When he reached a block before his apartment, he stopped running and took some deep breaths to calm his nerves. After a few moments collecting himself, he straightened up and made his way home, hoping for a warm shower to erase the chill in his body. One narrow, glowing eye peered out from the bushes along the roadside, watching him closely as he moved away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Flames of Burden**

**A Sailor Moon Fanfiction**

**Story & Original Characters © 2007 Sarah Ruth Forde  
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon © 1992 Naoko Takeuchi/Kodansha, TOEI Animation.**

Chapter II

Minako was sipping on her second deluxe triple chocolate milkshake when she saw Usagi come into the room. She waved enthusiastically to show Usagi where they were seated, even though they always sat at the same corner booth. Instead of running over with enthusiasm to meet her friends, today, Usagi looked a little withdrawn.

"Oh uh," Rei sighed, "another fight with Mamoru?"

Ami hushed her as Usagi reached the table and took her usual spot on the right side of the bench against the window. She looked at the others passively, then rested her face in her hands with a sigh.

"Usagi, the usual?" Unazaki said, as she cleared some plates off the table in the booth beside theirs.

Usagi shook her head, "No thanks, maybe in a while." Then turning to the others she added, "I thought you all had plans today?"

"Well it's difficult to garden in the rain," Makoto sighed, gazing at the clouds outside. She was still dressed in her clothes for outdoor work. Her wide brimmed hat sat on the bench beside her, useless without sun to shade.

"I was going to an street fashion show in Harajuku, but its been cancelled," Minako added.

"I didn't have any plans," Rei said, slightly irritably, "other than getting away from Grampa who is using the poor weather as an excuse to clean out the bath house." She rolled her eyes and slouched a bit on the bench. "Not my idea of a fun afternoon."

"What about you Ami?" Usagi asked. "Weren't you planning on starting your volunteer work at your mom's hospital today?"

"Yes," Ami smiled, "but the training has been postponed because the instructing nurse fell ill." Then she added, with concern, "Are you all right today? You seem a bit down."

Usagi sat back and stared and her fists, balled up in her lap. After a moment or two, she looked up with concern all over her face. "To be honest, everyone, there's something I have to tell you about."

She proceeded to explain to her friends the situation that had occurred at the lecture hall. Each of her friends interjected at various points to clarify, and in the end, they were all sitting around her with expressions of shock.

"Well, the planets really _did_ exist," Ami suggested, "Nemesis and Astera. So, perhaps Miss von Frauke has just done her research well."

"I don't know," Makoto said with suspicion in her voice, "it seems a big coincidence to me."

"But these kinds of theories about hidden or missing planets in our solar system have been around for ages. Conspiracy theorists love this stuff." Ami seemed to have a point as she relayed information to the group about various theories on hypothetical planets. "It just seems like Miss von Frauke has bought into the hype."

"But Ami, don't you think it strange that this woman would know so much about a planet that was tied to our recent enemy? It just screams sneaky to me." Minako had consumed the rest of her milkshake with the excitement of the story and didn't seem to notice that she just slurping up chocolate flavored air.

Rei placed a reassuring hand on Usagi's shoulder and smiled. "I'll look into it, okay? If there is any tie to Sailor Astera, I should be able to sense it."

"Thanks Rei," Usagi said sincerely. Business matters aside, Usagi was delighted to see Unazaki coming over with a delectable slice of chocolate cherry ice cream cake. No one seemed to notice the small amethyst crystal on Usagi's necklace as it pulsed with a soft violet light.

__________________________

"Where are you?" the voice kept asking over and over again. At first it had sounded distant and muted, like a mumbled question underwater. For some undeterminable amount of time, the voice had steadily increased in clarity. Now, she could here it clearly around her as it invaded her peace.

Even if the girl had wanted to wake from her blissful rest to answer the question, its unlikely she could have answered it truthfully. She'd found comfort in this place, but she did not know where she was. There was warmth here, and a feeling of belonging. The rhythm of life near by kept her company and she felt no fear or want. She kept her eyes comfortably closed not knowing if they could even be opened.

"Where are you?" the voice persisted, growing more aggressive. The girl tried to ignore it. If she did not know the answer, what was the point in replying? Where she was and who she was had never had any bearing on her here.

However, the atmosphere of her solitude was becoming diluted, and with it, her resolve. Even with her eyes closed, she could sense darkness growing around her and feel the warm sensation slipping away like the last moments of a fantastic dream. For the first time since she had awoken here, she felt a sense of urgency growing.

"Where are you?"

This time the voice echoed loudly in her mind, coming from within. Its fierceness had an undertone that startled the girl; there was concern there as well. Someone was searching for her and they were reaching out to her desperately. Suddenly it seemed like her time in this place had been spent waiting for this call. For some reason it was now very important that she answer.

When the girl opened her eyes, the light filtering into them was so brilliant that she could see nothing at all. As her eyes adjusted, she struggled to discern her location. Nothing she saw seemed to fit. This long alleyway between two brick buildings was cool and dark but completely unrecognizable. It was still daytime, but the sun was setting.

I don't know where I am," she said, half to herself and half to answer the question.

"I'm sorry?" another voice said. "Are you lost?"

The girl turned to see an older woman placing a bag of trash out in the alleyway beside her back door. The woman seemed concerned, but there was no recognition in her face. This woman couldn't have been the one calling to her.

"It's nothing," the girl said with a wave of her hand, "just a wrong turn."

The girl thanked the woman who then retreated into her home with a smile. Turning out of the alley, she made her way for a few blocks, looking into the faces of passers by who avoided her probing violet eyes. She had no idea who had been calling to her so forcefully, and now that she was in this city among so many strangers, she became nervous and unsure. These thoughts swirled around in her mind and she became dizzy and senseless in the fading daylight. As she felt herself falling forward in a daze, she caught a glimpse of a young blonde girl in pink walking away from her. The girl turned to look before crossing the street and the light from the setting sun glinted off a silver chain around her neck. The reflection off that chain spoke to the nameless girl, but she could not force herself forward any farther. The curl of the long blonde pigtails was the last thing she saw as she slipped to her knees and fell into cold darkness.

______________________

Luna caught up with Usagi at the shrine later on. She and her friends had spent the afternoon trying to remain carefree, but a sudden burden seemed to have settled on them with the unsettling arrival of the foreign lecturer. Rei had spent some time in mediitation while the others had tried to discuss normal, everyday things.

When Luna arrived, Usagi filled her in on the details.

"It is troubling," she replied. "Doesn't seem at all like a coincidence."

Usagi nodded in agreement as she rolled the amethyst crystal back and forth between her forefinger and thumb. Rei hadn't come up with anything pertinent by dinner time, and so the girls decided to venture home. Luna and Usagi walked together in silence; the latter trying to shake off the feeling that she was missing something important. Mamoru was waiting near Usagi's house when they arrived.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked after greeting him. Mamoru's eyes looked red and heavy and his face was strained with emotion that she could see. Luna sensed the tension and felt instinctively that it was best to move on.

"I will see you inside," she said, then scurried off, leaving the couple alone. Mamoru stayed leaning up against the wall beside Usagi's house. The air was very still and silent around them and Usagi moved closer to him to wrap her arms around his waist tightly. She inhaled his scent. Mamoru was never one for showing too much emotion, but there were feelings inside him that were welling up in his throat. Of course, Usagi could feel his pain.

"It's all right," she said in a comforting voice. "Do you remember everything now?" she could feel him nod. He was silent for a few more minutes as he tried to gain control of his voice.

"I found out something else today," he said, "about that lecturer. She is staying in a nearby hotel, only a few minutes from the university. I got the address."

"How did you find her?" Usagi asked as she pulled away to look into his face.

"To be honest, it was a little strange," he said. "After the lecture I went to the skating rink to try and recall everything." He paused and Usagi grasped his hand tightly. "When I left, I was full of so many thoughts, so much emotion. I went home to try and sort it all out. This note was on the steps to my apartment. I don't know why I picked it up," he said, "but I could sense something from it." He pulled out a small scrap of paper, typed, with an address and room number. "I checked it out right away. The hotel says no one is registered as staying in that room, but I saw her go into the building as I was leaving," he said, "the keycard she used had this room number on it."

Usagi frowned. This woman was more and more suspicious.

"And I could sense something from her as she passed," he said. "Only, I don't think she noticed me. She was very upset, I could feel it. It chilled me."

"There must be a connection," Usagi sighed. "I don't want to believe it, but there's just too much going on around her."

"I didn't stick around," he said. "I wanted to come and let you know about this. Maybe we should look into that hotel some more. Their records are obviously being altered."

Usagi agreed and told Mamoru about the conversation at Crown. They agreed that tomorrow they would lay everything out and decide on the best course of action. Their goodbye embrace was prolonged by a sense of inevitable separation which both longed to avoid. Long shadows split the street into light and dark stripes, mirroring the strips of clearing clouds turning orange in the light of the setting sun.

"If something does happen, it won't happen the same way this time," she said, giving voice to their similar concerns. "I won't let it." As she held him, she felt a warmth issuing from the crystal on her chest.

_______________________

Miss Anya von Faulk was, moments later, ripping a delicate hair tie from her dense, black hair and aggressively hurling it across a rich looking hotel room. Her eyes, burned with frustration as she dragged a brush through her hair, knuckles blanched with the anger of her grip.

"Why is this happening?" she said to her own furious reflection. She was still oblivious to the sarcasm of the reporters. In her heart, she could care less what these people thought of her. Only one thing truly mattered to her at that moment, her motivation for continuing this facade of a lecture series: somewhere in Tokyo her sister was waiting for her. Her beautiful, powerfully dark sister with unmatched rage and passion for revenge was somewhere nearby. "I must find her," Anya said, pausing to examine the knotted strands caught in the brush bristles.

She changed into night clothing and moved to the bedside, sinking into the plush comforter. These lectures had all been planned carefully to alert her sister to her presence. Anya had waited three years in the protective sanctuary her sister had left her in, waiting for the return of Astera. But she had not come back, and time had passed. Anya could not thing of a foreseeable reason why Astera had not yet appeared, then or now. Breaking her promise to her sister, she left the sanctuary to go to the one place she knew her sister had gone, this city. Still, Astera did not appear, and Anya was practically screaming her name.

Frustrated, she found sleep would not come easily. She lay in her comfortable bed glaring up, riled at everything. The light from the city played on the textured ceiling, creating an artificial star field. Glinting lights of the solar system - how long had it been since she had seen her home? And now, to know that she could never see it again, that is was gone, demolished in an instant. It was as if her roots had been torn away. That dark moon Nemesis and her peaceful sanctuary could not have compared to the glory of the planet Astera. Anya rolled on her side, pressing her eyes shut tightly to hold back angry, threatening tears.

Her sister had to be alive, somewhere in Tokyo. Sailor Astera was all Anya had now, she all that was left of home. Shuttering, Anya reached out and clasped her hand around a small obsidian stone. It's cool surface released a calm over her, steadying her nerves and pushing the tension from her mind. It became clear to her what her next move must be. The power given to her by her gracious sister and father had allowed her to survive, to follow in her sister's footsteps. The time had come for her to take up the sword of revenge for every unfair hand they had been dealt. It was her time to rise.

Pushing the covers aside, Anya walked to the balcony slider and pushed it back. The sun had just dipped below the horizon and the dying light was fading fast. The chill night air wrapped around her arms and legs, lifting her hair and causing her skin to prickle with alertness. Far below her, the city buzzed with the growing night life. Energy was rising within Anya as well, a pulsing ebb and flow of power she could feel flowing from her right hand clutched around the obsidian stone. She stepped up and stood unnaturally, effortlessly on the thin steel rail of the balcony. She closed her eyes as a sapphire flame ripped open around her hand and rapidly engulfed her whole body, shredding away her night clothes and lighting her skin with an ethereal, burning blue glow. Shifting her weight slightly, she slipped from the balcony rail, a blazing blue fireball plummeting down, reflected in the surface of the building beside her.

When her eyes flashed open, the flames around her erupted with tremendous fury, blasting some of the nearby windows into fragments as she seared past them. People on the street screamed and ran from the descending fireball, and as she neared the ground, Anya released a rancorous laughter tinged with the power of hatred. Its sound echoed eerily around the city as the fireball exploded in a supernova of bright blue light.

Sailor Obsidia had risen.

____________________________

It's really dark here, and I feel like I can't take in a full breath. I hear faded voices around me, but I don't understand them and I can't seem focus enough to try harder. My chest feels heavy and my limbs refuse to move; there is nothing I can do. As I drift in and out of consciousness, I begin to see visions of a desolate planet, dark and barren. "Where is this place?" I ask myself, floating full of a dark sensation. There are shadows of figures moving around me, shouting and screaming. Is this the end of everything? Are they fleeing for their lives? When I see the explosion, it blinds me. But this is a dream; I'm not really seeing this. When the white light fades, there is nothing left but chunks of cooling rock, drifting aimlessly in the space where that planet had once been. I am floating cold and alone.

I move back into semi-consciousness and I hear a soft, sweet voice telling me that I am safe. It assures me that I will be taken care of and urges me to rest. I feel obliged to follow the kind instructions, so I drift again into the darkness. This time, there is a man standing before me, but he is little more than a mirage. As I try to focus on him, I realize I can see through him. There is a young girl at his feet unconscious, her deep velvety hair spilling all around her. Something warm and violet is glowing above her chest. I feel sorry for her; there's something painful in her situation that I can connect to. I want to help, but I am drawn away from the scene by some unseen hand.

In my new darkness I hear a woman laughing maniacally. Once again, I cannot open my eyes, but I feel the delicate slipping of cold thin hands along my shoulders. They grasp me and shake me viciously, violently thrashing me around against my will. I try to scream and tell her to stop, but I find that my voice makes no sound in this place. She won't stop the shaking, I realize. She's hurting me, and I am terrified.

________________________________

When Usagi burst through the doors at Hiwaka shrine, Rei, Ami, Minako and Makoto all jumped to their feet. Usagi had called them all in a panic only moments before. Even in the middle of the night, they were there for her.

"Usagi! What happened?" Ami asked as Makoto moved towards her friend to support the blonde as she caught her breath. Holding her hand out towards Rei, Usagi passed the silver chain to the priestess and collapsed to the floor. Minako rushed to get a glass of water for Usagi while Rei examined the artifact Usagi had presented to her.

"This is the necklace you've been wearing lately, right?" she asked.

"It's the stone you found after the battle at the ice rink," Makoto added.

Usagi nodded, slowly regaining her composure. "Just now," she said, "it shone brilliantly with a bright purple light, and it got so hot I broke the chain pulling it off." Usagi pulled down the collar of her top revealing a small, red burn where the stone had been resting. She told the others that after she tore the necklace off, she had dropped it to the ground where it burst into blue flames. "After the fire died out, a beautiful purple light lifted up from the crystal and flew out away from me faster than I could follow! I'm so worried. Does this mean that she will return?"

The stone was now cold and dim in Rei's hands, but she turned it over and over trying to sense something from its dead core.

Minako had come back in to catch the end of Usagi's story. "Sailor Astera couldn't come back evil though, could she? You told us you saw her healed."

"I did," Usagi said after a grateful gulp of water. "But those flames! There was no good in that. There is definitely something wrong here, I know it now. I really didn't want it to be true!"

For a moment, all five girls remained silently focused on the stone in Rei's hand. They all had vague memories of the battle with Astera, but most of them were supplemented by Usagi's explanations of what had happened. The stone she had found, they had assumed, must have been a fragment of the amethyst crystal Astera had used as a weapon. It was Ami that had originally determined the crystal to be the source of Astera's true spirit. But Usagi couldn't help but wonder if what she saw had been real. Could they be sure the Sailor Astera that left the battleground reborn would remain a new soldier of peace?

"I just can't believe she would come back as our enemy," Usagi said, shaking her head with tears in her eyes, "Not after everything." Her voice faded away as she recalled the losses of the fight. Even though in the end, everyone had been saved, the pain had really been too much. Rei moved closer to Usagi and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I've done some readings but so far nothing concrete has turned up," she said. "But I am confident this will help me."

"In the meantime, we should do some serious fieldwork," Ami said.

"That's right," Minako added, "we should start with the Anya woman Usagi met earlier today."

"Mamoru found out where she's staying," Usagi told them. She filled them in on what he had seen.

"Isn't that suspicious as well?" Ami asked. "A note just showed up at his apartment?"

Minako nodded in agreement. "It could be a trap," she said, chewing on her fingernail.

They considered this for a moment before Makoto broke the silence. "Let's find out when her next lecture is so we can investigate her from a distance."

"I've already looked into it," Ami said. "There's a lecture scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Some of us should go check it out." "Usagi and I will go," Makoto said. "Right?" Usagi nodded.

"Me too," Rei added, "it will give me a chance to get a close up impression of her."

"I will try to dig up some more information on her background," Minako said. "Since there is some celebrity surrounding her visits, there ought to be some details I can scrounge up on what she's been doing."

Once again, the calm collective sense of resolution from her friends made Usagi feel they could face any trouble that may lay ahead. As she listened to their developing plans, she became increasingly hopeful this problem could be solved swiftly. The girls agreed to meet up after some sleep before branching out with their plans. Ami would be around later in the afternoon because of her volunteer work.

"You know how to reach me if something comes up," she said, holding up her communicator. Minako and Makoto agreed to walk Usagi home while Rei made plans to spend the rest of the night searching the flames for answers. Usagi shivered in the evening air as they descended the temple steps.


	3. Chapter 3

**Flames of Burden**

**A Sailor Moon Fanfiction**

**Story & Original Characters © 2007 Sarah Ruth Forde  
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon © 1992 Naoko Takeuchi/Kodansha, TOEI Animation.**

Chapter III

The following morning, Ami woke up a few hours easy to do some research on Anya von Faulk and her lecture series. She determined through some internet searches that the speaker had been scheduled for lectures throughout the rest of the year in schools and universities all over the country. However, it was quickly apparent that most of her reoccurring lectures had been located in and around the inner Tokyo area. It seemed clear that whatever her intentions were, she was specifically targeting the city. As she had informed the others, Ami located a lecture that had been scheduled for that afternoon. However, this morning, the school's site listed the event as cancelled. Grabbing the phone, Ami made a quick call.

"Mirgashi University, Riona speaking, how many I help you?"

"Good morning," Ami said, "I am calling to inquire about the lecture cancellation today for 3 o'clock this afternoon. Will that lecture be rescheduled?"

"Unfortunately, at this time we have no further information on that event," Riona said.

"Thank you," Ami hung up the phone and contacted Makoto via her communicator to inform her about the cancellation. "There was no reason given, but that means we won't be able to see her today. It looks like most of the events scheduled for the rest of this month have been cancelled as well. Perhaps she's sick."

"Maybe," Makoto said, "but I doubt it. Just as soon as we start looking into it, she gets sick?"

"I agree. Is there any other leads we can take? It looks like the lectures were concentrated in the city," Ami said.

"I will talk with the others and we'll figure out what to do next," Makoto replied. "We could always go to that hotel and try to find her there. Even if it is a trap, we might be able to get some answers. You go to the hospital and leave it to us today. If anything happens, we will call you."

Minako and Makoto arrived at Rei's place separately, but met at the stairway. As they approached the temple together, the priestess greeted them none too cheerfully. Her face was drawn and she looked like she hadn't slept at all.

"Rei, you look awful," Minako said tactlessly.

"Thanks," she said, too tried for sarcasm. "There is definitely a connection to Sailor Astera from this crystal. "I sensed a very strong aura from it once I began my reading, but the power seems to be dormant now. It has the her resonance, though I wasn't sensing anything dark from it."

"The lecture today has been cancelled," Makoto told them. "Ami says most of the lectures are offline now. We're going to have to come up with another way to find her and that hotel lead seems to be the best option regardless of the circumstance." Just then, Usagi arrived. Though she was a few minutes late, the others refrained from mentioning it. In her hand, she clutched a newspaper clipping. She was waving it around as she came up to them.

"What is that?" Minako asked.

"It's a clipping from this morning's paper," Usagi said, "Dad was out all night covering it." She handed the paper to Makoto who skimmed it in silence.

"Read it aloud," Rei said impatiently.

"Oh sorry. It says, 'Residents of the Juuban district are in shock this morning as they deal with the aftermath of what is being called a meteor strike in the heart of the neighborhood. Officials say the blazing ball of blue fire witnessed by over 20 people late last night at approximately 9:30PM disintegrated before hitting the street beside 5719 Isikawa.

"Witnesses are saying the object appears to have hit the building before falling to the ground with a violent explosion. Officials confirmed this early this morning, and verified that the building sustained significant damage on the north face, including a fire that engulfed several hotel rooms on the 26th floor. The rooms were all reported to have been vacant at the time of the incident and no injuries have been reported.

"Shinjuki Aramani, a first year student at Mirgashi University told our reporters that she witnessed what appeared to be a woman jumping from a balcony just before the explosion near the ground level. "She stood up on the rail, looking out at the city. I didn't think she would jump, but then there was a bright flash and I couldn't see for a moment. I think the meteor might have hit her!" Several other witnesses are claiming they also saw a woman within the flames of the falling object. Officials are saying this was an illusion due to the shape and size of the meteorite.

"Investigators have found no traces of the material from which the meteorite was composed. Sources inside have reported that it likely burned up before reaching the ground. The investigation continues to determine what set off the large, ground level explosion, though speculation that a leaking gas pipe may have ignited the blast." Makoto paused, then looked around at the mixed expressions.

"Well, it could be another coincidence?" Minako said, trying to sound optimistic.

"There's more though," Usagi said. "This is the same hotel Mamoru told us Anya has been staying at."

"Are you sure it was this hotel?" Rei asked.

"The article says those rooms were all empty," Minako said. "Don't you think they would've reported if someone was killed?"

"Not if she wasn't registered as staying there," Makoto pointed out.

"He saw her go into the building with the room key," Usagi insisted. "It was this hotel; there has to be a connection. I'm willing to bet Anya caused that explosion."

Minako sighed and leaned back against a tree. They all considered the situation carefully for a few moments. "It's our best lead," she finally said. "It might be a trap, but we have to go check it out." The other's agreed.

___________________________

Sailor Obsidia had canvassed the whole city all night long and hadn't found a hint of her sister. Not a sign, not a sense - nothing at all. Frustrating couldn't truly describe the levels to which her emotions reached. Standing on the charred remains of her hotel balcony, she stared off into nothing as her sailor outfit disintergated and reformed as civilian clothing. Anya von Faulk was absolutely livid. Pieces of glass and metal crunched beneath her heels as she began to pace back and forth in the early morning sunrise. Her hands twisted around one another, pressing and dragging. Her whole life had been upturned only a few short months ago.

"That night," she recalled to herself, "I thought I was crazy." Anyone would have, she reasoned.

When the young orphaned girl in Germany had woken up in the middle of the night to a booming voice in her head, she had been terrified. Demanding, loud, and obtrusive it had commanded her to get up, get dressed and go to Japan. Yet it all seemed reasonable, once she remembered everything. In fact, she was ashamed she had forgotten at all: the beautiful velvet skies of Astera, Jupiter on the horizon, her sister with her royal crescent mark. Anya placed a hand to her forehead, tracing the shape of a crescent stone there. She peeled it from her forehead and stared at the back of the gem; a false mark she used to emulate her sister, the true queen of the Solar System. True, they had not been sisters by blood, but they shared a bond that went so much deeper into their being.

When the planet Astera had been destroyed, they had spent days on the dark moon Nemesis with no word of their father's fate. The oath the Dark Moon had made to the father to keep the girls together was determined to be null by the destruction of his kingdomm, so they were seperated to contain any potential power. They were alone and terrified. Finally, their father contacted Astera through a vision. Somehow, Astera was able to break free from her captives and find Obsidia. They experienced something spectacular when they reconnected; Anya could barely recall it. It was painful, shocking, and left the two of them unconscious for days. It was a true nightmare; however, it had filled them with power. Anya clasped her hand around her obsidian crystal and recalled the first time she had felt the urge to call out that magical phrase.

Something deep inside her had changed that night. She and Astera were bound by fate from that point on, not just as siblings but as linked souls. They could have continued in their father's stead, but fate had it they would be torn apart once more.

The Dark Moon Family on Nemesis were aware of the change in the two refugees they harbored and they were furious the two had been allowed to come in contact again. An arrogant man with blazing red hair was then commanded to take the younger of the two as his servant to 20th century Earth to seek energy points. He could care less about her fate and he was irate to have her dumped on him. So, he abandoned her there on Earth, in Berlin.

Alone and terrified, cut off from the last of her home, Obsidia had run for her life. There was a traffic accident - she spent days in the hospital with no memories of who she was - and then, her new life, and her new name. Still, she always knew that she had lost something more precious than her memories, something deeper that she had totally forgotten. When those memories came back, her purpose in life had returned.

"Sailor Astera, I know you are here. Just give me a sign."

___________________________

Ami's volunteer service would be generally limited to keeping patients company and checking vitals. She really enjoyed the atmosphere of the hospital and found the training challenging and exciting. She was also meeting new friends.

After a morning session, they were given a break and told to walk the floor they would be working on to introduce themselves. Ami was on her way there when she passed a room that caught her attention for completely non-volunteer related reasons: something from inside was releasing a strange energy that she could sense. Looking up and down the hall, it seemed no one was paying much attention to the young volunteer, so she slipped into he room quietly.

The patient on the bed was asleep or unconscious, Ami wasn't sure. The monitors were beeping quietly, keeping track of the patient's vitals and administering fluids. Ami could see the back of the girl's head, covered in blonde hair that had been tied into a loose bun. Her heart was pounding in her chest; something about this girl felt unnatural. A soldier?

Ami was nervous as she moved around the bedside. The girl's body rose and fell steadily with breath, but Ami felt her chest tighten. The face looked familiar, but Ami couldn't place it. She stood there silently, analyzing this feeling.

A sudden noise from the hall caused Ami to jump. There were footsteps drawing closer; someone was coming in. Ami shot a glance around but there was no where in the room she could hide. Instinctively, she reached into her pocket and clasped her transformation pen while simultaneously thinking, "What good would that do?"

Many things happened all at once. As Ami's hand grasped her pen, the patient on the bed began writhing in a violent seizure. At the same time the door opened and a nurse rushed in. In all the commotion, there was an inexplicable flash of light that blasted through the room and knocked out all the power on the equipment in the room. Two more nurses rushed in shortly after and Ami slipped back against the wall and moved quickly from the room. Walking briskly towards the training room, she ran through the scenario again and again. Her heart was pounding. Turning a corner, she collided with one of the other volunteers as she was exiting the training room.

"Oh, Miss Mizuno! I'm sorry, are you all right?" the girl asked. "You look like you're in shock!"

"It's okay," Ami muttered, distracted. She slipped past the girl quickly without an apology and searched the hall frantically until she found a small waiting area that was empty. Slamming the door shut behind her, she opened her communicator.

___________________________

Anya's entire body tensed. That flash of power! That energy! "Obsidian Crystal Power, Make up!" In a flash of blue flames, Sailor Obsidia burst from the balcony towards the signal she had been craving. Finally, to be reunited at last!

___________________________

A bright chirp-chirping of Usagi's communicator interrupted their conversation. When she opened the cover, Ami's frantic face filled the screen.

"You guys have to come quickly, fourth floor," static broke into the communication and there was loud screaming and a sudden, explosive noise as the picture faltered and the screen turned to static.

"Ami, what's happening? Where are you?" Usagi asked as the other girls crowded around terrified.

"She's at the hospital," Makoto said, "let's go!" As they started running, Usagi kept the communicator open. When the picture cleared, she could see Sailor Mercury's back running from it; the communicator must have been dropped. A moment later, the connection was lost completely.

Usagi slipped the device back into her pocket and tore on behind the others. Just as the reached the top of a hill, the four of them were sent tumbling to the ground by a trembling of the earth that made the light posts sway and the sidewalk splinter.

"An earthquake?" Minako said in shock after the rumbling stopped.

Rei was the first to her feet. "No," she said with darkness in her voice, "There was definitely something more sinister in that."

"A powerful presense of darkness?" Makoto asked, "Sailor Astera?"

Rei shook her head, "No, it's something else. Come on." They started off again, this time avoiding small crevices that had formed now and then in their path. Rei reflected on the sensation she had just felt and tried to place it. If only she had met Anya, perhaps she could have drawn the connection. As it was, the four girls raced on towards the unknown.

Makoto was clutching her transformation pen tightly in her left hand as she lead the girls across the roadways towards the hospital. "This way!" she shouted, as she rounded a corner. Minako, Rei and Usagi, in that order, plowed on behind her trying to keep up. Each one of them was brimming with concern for what they would find once they arrived. As they were running towards the hospital, it seemed like everyone else they encountered was running away from it; the looks on their faces didn't give the girls much hope.

"Everyone, stay back!" Minako said as she pulled up along side Makoto as they neared the last corner before the hospital. They paused at the edge of the building to listen. It was totally silent.

"Let's transform," Usagi said, lifting her brooch.

"Wait!" Rei stood very still, her eyes narrowed. "There's something coming closer. Over there!" The other three girls remained still, waiting with intense anxiety with eyes towards the direction Rei pointed. The sun slipped behind a cloud, drenching the road in shadow and chilling the air noticeably. They shivered. A sudden brown blur zoomed by the girls, moving incredibly fast past them towards the hospital. "What the heck was that?" Minako shouted.

"I think it was a cat!" Makoto said.

Another explosion threw the alleyway into harsh shadows, lighting up the opposite wall a brilliant blue. "Ami!," Usagi shouted. "We can't just stand here! Moon Crystal Power, MAKE UP!"

The other three girls followed with their transformations, and the four sailor soldiers raced around the corner towards their friend. Bits of concrete and glass were still falling from the crumbling wall of the building as they ran towards it. No one else was in sight. They had been trying to reach Ami on the communicator again, but to no avail.

"Mars, let's go around this side," Sailor Jupiter said, motioning towards the nearest entrance. "Venus, Sailor Moon, you guys go around to that side entrance." They all nodded and made their way to the doorways. Ami's communication had told them she was on the forth floor so they agreed to meet up there.

Mars and Jupiter encountered a collapsed staircase a few seconds into their entry. "Let's go back around the other way," Mars suggested. The two girls made for the other entrance.

Meanwhile, Sailor Moon and Venus had already scaled the stairs and had come to a halt at the edge of a collapsed section of hallway. Across the gap, blue flames danced frantically around hospital beds and curtains.

"Ami!" Sailor Moon called out into the blaze. There was no response and they couldn't really see through the flames.

"Let's see if we can get over there," Venus said. "Look, there's a ledge along the inside wall!" Sailor Moon nodded and followed Venus to the narrow ledge. Venus slid a foot out onto the remaining thin, tiled flooring to test her weight; it seemed to be holding. I'll go first," she said.

Sailor Moon watched anxiously as Venus slid along slowly. The smooth surface of the hospital wall did not offer much for grip. Venus opted to face the chasm to the floors below in hopes that she could balance by leaning slightly back. After a few steps, she grew more confident and started moving faster, now halfway across.

"Don't take another step," a cool voice said. Venus froze in her spot and peered into the flames for the source of the voice.

"Who's there?" Sailor Moon asked nervously. "Where's Ami?"

"Ami?" the voice asked. "You mean that nuisance I disposed of?" The flames parted, reveling a sailor senshi clad in black and blue with long dark blue hair. The soldier walked forward slowly, inspecting the two figures before her. Sailor Moon gasped at her appearance: that outfit, those eyes, that cresncent mark upon her forehead...

"What do you mean by that? Who are you?" Sailor Moon asked defensively.

"Sailor Obsidia, a pleasure to meet you, I'm sure."

"How are you linked to Sailor Astera?" Venus asked.

Obsidia raised an eyebrow. She wasn't expecting them to know anything about her. "What do you know about my sister?" she asked darkly. "Did you have something to do with her being like this?" Obsidia gestured to the open space beside her. Neither Sailor Moon or Sailor Venus had seen the blonde young woman lying beside the wall, unconscious and wrapped in hospital bed sheets.

"Tell us where Ami is and maybe we will tell you," Venus replied with spite. Could that really be Sailor Astera? she thought, looking at the crumpled figure on the floor. Sailor Moon was thinking the same, but right now their priority was finding their friend.

Obsidia scoffed at them. "I don't have time to deal with your little games, so just get out of my way."

"Where's Ami?" Sailor moon asked again defiantly, her eyes furious. As if in response, a scream echoed from the depth of the fire. Venus and Moon tensed.

"For a soldier of water, she really isn't quenching her death very well." Obsidia said with the sly grin. Then she moved quickly towards her sister on the ground.

Venus ran the last few feet of the ledge as if it were as wide as a sidewalk, and Sailor Moon followed without flinching even as the ledge fell away under every step. Sailor Jupiter and Mars arrived at that moment and witnessed Sailor Moon's plunge past the new soldier into the flames. Sailor Venus stepped between Obsidia and the girl on the floor, prepared to fight.

"Don't even think you will leave here that easily," Venus said. Mars and Jupiter stood with furious faces along the ledge, stranded on the other side.

Sailor Moon fought through the dark flames that singed her skin and outfit. They didn't seem to emit light at all; in fact, it was quite the opposite. As she moved further in, it felt like she could see less and less as shadows played around her in shades of black and blue. Past the first few feet, the burning ceased and there was just dense darkness all around. She knew she had to find Mercury fast. The darkness was suffocating, drawing out her breath and causing her chest to tighten and her skin to frost slightly. Mercury must have used great effort to have called out to them, who knew how much energy she could have left in this place.

Meanwhile, Venus continued to face off against Obsidia. There was a tense moment in which no one spoke or moved while the soldier of love stared intently into the dark eyes of her challenger. Of course, part of her thoughts were with Sailor Moon in the dark flames. Her instinct was to follow her Princess into the fire, but she knew she could not let this enemy get away.

"I have no intention on sitting here with you debating my departure," Obsidia said. "Move away from my sister."

"This isn't a debate," Sailor Venus said. She charged her powers to attack but Obsidia sensed it impossibly soon.

"Obsidia Illumin Sear!" the dark senshi cried out. Venus could not react in time and as the force of the dark fire hit her, she slid backwards along the tiles and over the edge of the cavernous hole in the floor.

"Sailor Venus!" Jupiter called to her, reaching down.

"Venus Love-Me Chain!" Jupiter caught and grasped the end of the metallic orange chain of hearts and pulled all her weight against the impact of Venus' body hanging from the other end. Sailor Obsidia laughed as Venus swayed back and forth like a sailor pendulum.

"Really, was that even worth the time?" scooping up her sister, Obsidia vanished in a flourish of blue fire just as Mars' attack reached the spot she'd been standing.

"Damn her!" Mars said, "What was that all about? Her sister? Astera had a sister?" Jupiter worked on pulling Venus up as Mars paced back and forth ranting furiously. The blue flames on the opposite side of the chasm had ceased when Obsidia had vanished, but Sailor Moon and Mercury were no where in sight. The ruins of the hospital were eerily silent. On the opposite side of the open floor, a small shining eye peered out from under one of the hospital beds. It were wide and watery with tears.

"All you all right?" Jupiter asked.

"A little shaken," Venus said, "but yes, I'm all right." She turned to face the empty hospital room across the chasm. "Sailor Moon..."

"The fire vanished after she left and there's no sign of her," Mars said.

"Mercury was trapped in there too," she replied. "We heard her voice from the flames."

They looked across at the open space on the other side. "What should we do?" Jupiter asked. Sailor Mars tried to spread her field of sensory to the area across the room, and moment she did, she was jolted with a sense of deep sorrow.

"Someone is still over there," she told the others. "Show yourself! Where's Sailor Moon?"

"Your friends are trapped in Sailor Obsidia's burden of darkness," a deep, mellow voice said. From under the hospital bed emerged a dark brown cat with tufts of light fur on his chest and paws. One of his violet eyes was sharp and alert; however, the other eye was glazed over white and obviously blind. On the same side, his ear had noticeably sustained injury. The fur on half of his face, neck and left shoulder had turned stark white.

Sailor Venus gasped when she saw him. She recognized him as the cat that had been accompanying Sailor Astera when they had last encountered her. The change in his appearance was striking.

"I'm sorry to approach you this way," he said. He kept his head bowed as he spoke and it was clear that he felt uncomfortable in their presence. "My name is Demitrius."

"You're Sailor Astera's cat!" Sailor Venus said. "What happened to you?"

Demitrius turned his head away for a moment, self conscious of his deformed body. "This was my appearance when I awoke from the battle at the ice rink," he told them. "Because of Sailor Moon's power, I was not killed as I should have been, but my sins have been too grave. Even the holy power of the moon could not remove this mark from me."

"Why are you here now?" Sailor Mars asked. "What do you mean they are trapped in the attack?"

"They are secluded within the darkness of the attack, even though the attack is no longer visible. They are here, in this space, but have slipped into an alternate dimension."

"Can we help them, or can we get to them?" Jupiter said.

"It is up to Sailor Moon to find her way out," he replied. "She must overcome the burden that has been placed on her."

"Why should we trust you?" Mars asked with frustration.

Demitrius walked to the edge of the chasm and looked across the pit towards the soldiers. He straightened his shoulders and forced himself to face them directly. "You have no reason to trust me," he told them. "I have gambled and lost that which has been most precious to me. I am desperate now, and you are likely my only hope. I don't ask for your forgiveness or your confidence, but please, I beg you to help me save the Princess of Astera."

"You're damn right we have no reason to trust you!" Sailor Jupiter said, raising a lighting ball fist. "Get away from here!" Sailor Mars and Venus stood by, unsure of their reaction to Demitrius' speech. "I understand," he said, "I didn't want to come to you this way, I never expected this. I'm sorry." He turned tail and began to move back into the other side of the building.

"Wait," Sailor Venus said uncertainly. "What kind of burden are they facing? Inside the attack, what is it like?" Demitrius spoke without turning towards them, his head hung low. "It is the darkest of places, it sucks the life from you," he said. "They will have to overcome that which lays most heavily on their conscious."


	4. Chapter 4

**Flames of Burden**

**A Sailor Moon Fanfiction**

**Story & Original Characters © 2007 Sarah Ruth Forde  
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon © 1992 Naoko Takeuchi/Kodansha, TOEI Animation.**

Chapter IV

Sailor Moon kept moving through the darkness, calling out to Sailor Mercury. She was losing energy fast and she felt tired and worn. Finally, she could not move any farther and she collapsed to the translucent floor. She forced herself to focus as she tried to catch her breath.

"Pay attention," she said aloud to herself, "find Ami." After a few moments, she felt renewed energy and tried to get up and keep moving, but a stiffness had taken hold of her legs. They felt like lead weights anchoring her body down. She shouted at herself to get up. She tried with all her might to move her legs but nothing budged.

"Damn it!"

"It's hard for you, isn't it?" a voice asked. Usagi looked up in shock, that was Ami's voice.

"Ami, where are you?" Usagi replied. "Are you stuck somewhere too?"

There was a giggling reply, "I'm not stuck anywhere," she said, "just relax and you will see how much easier it is." Sailor Moon tried to see into the misty darkness around her to find the source of the voice, but when it spoke it sounded like it was all around her.

She took a deep breath and tried to relax. Leaning back, she spread her body out along the dark surface and took deep calming breaths.

"That's the way," Ami's voice said. "Now just let your mind drift."

It was more of a command then a request, for as soon as she heard those words Sailor Moon felt her consciousness being drawn away from her. She was slipping and she sensed it: this was not a good idea. Fighting against the pull of unconsciousness, Sailor Moon rolled on the floor, trying to retain control. "Let go of me!" said tried to say, but no sound came from her mouth.

"It's too hard to keep working like this," Ami's voice said. "You give and give, but what do you get in return? Don't you deserve a break? Don't you want some time to relax? You have all this pressure on you all the time when all you want is to just live in peace with the ones you love." Sailor Moon considered this. It was true - that was what she wanted. And she did work so hard, but what was it all for? She relaxed a little and felt peaceful and comfortable. It would be so nice to just stop fighting all the time and just ignore the problems. If she just lived her life how she wanted, wouldn't she be happier?

"NO!" she jumped at the sound of that shout. She realized her eyes had closed, so she forced them open. Straining against cumbersome weight, she forced herself to her knees, and then to her feet. Her breathing was labored, but she was determined to find Ami. There's no way that Ami truly felt that way! She continued working through the heavy darkness until she saw the faint outline of something ahead. When she reached her friend, she found her in her regular clothing, unconscious. Using every ounce of energy she could muster, Sailor Moon lifted Ami onto her back and began slowly moving in the direction she thought she had come from.

"Sailor Moon," Ami's voice said faintly with strain.

"It's okay," Sailor Moon said, "we will get out of here. Can anyone hear me?" she shouted.

___________________________

As Demitrius walked away from them, a faint shift of the wind caused the other soldiers to turn with a start. Tuxedo Mask had just revealed himself.

"Wait," he said. "Please, there must be a way to reach her."

The senshi watched as Demitrius turned back to them and stared into the masked face from a distance. He held his voice for a few moments uncertainly. "You can try to reach her," he finally said, "if you bond is strong enough. You can try to call out to her."

Tuxedo Mask walked to the edge of the gap and knelt there on one knee, peering across into the broken hospital. "I can feel her calling to me all ready," he said. "Listen!" The three other soldiers moved closer to the edge of the pit and closed their eyes, focusing on the space in front of them. Very softly, a sound came to them. At first it was just a feeling, then a murmur, then a whisper: "Can anyone hear me?"

"I hear her!" Venus said, "Sailor Moon, I hear you!"

"Sailor Moon!" Jupiter called out, focusing on the growing sound in her mind. Sailor Mars' brow crinkled as she focused all her power, crying out within her mind to her friend. Demitrius watched, his heart filling with hope. Perhaps these soldiers could really could save his princess.

In the darkness of the attack, Sailor Moon was losing strength. She felt as though she had been wandering for many hours, and Ami had not spoken again. Still, somehow, the burden of Ami's weight was actually giving her strength. When she faltered, it wasn't because of the friend she carried, but because she began to doubt. When she remembered who she was carrying and why it mattered to fight, she could take another step. It was a dance of will power; she wouldn't give up.

Suddenly, a bright point of light pieced the darkness and washed over her. She shielded her eyes and peered through her fingertips. A rainbow of orange, gold, red and green washed into the dark space, filling it with light and lifting the weight of doubt completely. "Sailor Moon!" she heard clearly through the light.

She ran!

The three soldiers and Tuxedo Mask watched as the space across from them rippled and bulged as if the air were liquid. A sudden white light burst forth from the space, the force and brightness of which threw the four of them back into the corridor.

Sailor Moon burst from the light at full speed. As her eyes adjusted to the fading light, she realized a new peril: she was running full speed off the edge of a cliff.

"Sailor Moon!" Tuxedo Mask shouted. She leapt in the air at the last possible second. Sailing across the gap with eyes wide, she stretched her arms forward towards his outstretched hands as he ran to the edge to meet her.

As their fingers wrapped around one another, Tuxedo Mask threw his weight back and pulled her towards him. He slammed into the floor with her on top of his chest as Ami's unconscious body was thrown over their heads. Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Mars both threw themselves forward to catch her, each wrapping their arms around her torso as they also fell back against the floor. At the last moment, Sailor Venus slipped her hands under Ami's head to protect it from a nasty collision with the tiled floor. In the chaos, Demitrius had slipped away silently.

"I'm so glad you got out," Tuxedo Mask said.

"Thank you," she replied, pressing her head against his chest.

A few hours later, the six of them were back at the temple to meet up with Artemis and Luna. Ami had come to on the walk back, sustained by Mamoru's touch. She had no recollection of her encounter with Sailor Obsidia and was surprised to hear about all the trouble Sailor Moon had gone through. They all agreed she could be filled in on the details after she was fully well again. Not used to being doctored, Ami reluctantly went to rest. The other girls and Mamoru tried to debrief and make sense of the afternoon's events.

"What do you make of that being Sailor Astera's sister?" Minako asked.

Makoto shook her head, "I never saw it coming. I thought for sure we'd be dealing with Astera herself. Do you really think she was that blonde girl?"

"I could only see the girl's hair," Rei said. "And I couldn't sense much from her other than confusion. It was as if she didn't even know herself."

"It was definitely her," Usagi said, "we are going to have to save her."

"Save her? Wait a second, are we talking about the same person here?" Makoto said. Usagi stared in disbelief and said, "Of course! We can't just let Obsidia take her! Who knows what she will do!"

Minako put a reassuring hand on Usagi's shoulder. "We know you are concerned," she said carefully, "but there are other things to consider here."

"That's right," Rei said, "could be a trap."

"But there's no way Astera is still evil," she said with frustration. "I saw her myself! She was totally reborn!" She turned to Mamoru with a pleading look, "You believe me, right?"

"We all believe you saw her," Luna said, "but that doesn't mean it wasn't an illusion or something meant to deter us from the truth."

"Even if she was truly healed, we don't really know what we are facing against Sailor Obsidia," Artemis added. "There's no question they are linked."

Usagi bit her lip and stared at the ground. It wasn't an illusion, she thought to herself, there was just no way. And they had to act, didn't they? She felt like it was their obligation to help Sailor Astera just like it was her obligation to go after Ami in that attack. Soldiers protected one another. The other's continued to discuss the battle, but Usagi didn't feel like taking part anymore. She sulked for a while, then went to check on Ami.

Her blue-haired friend was awake and sitting on the edge of the bed when Usagi walked in. "Ami," Usagi said, "do you need anything?"

"No," she replied, "but something is bothering me."

Usagi sat down beside her and their eyes met. "What is it?"

"Sailor Obsidia knew that Astera had been healed, and she was able to find her instantly." she said. "I remember now, when I rushed back to Astera in the hospital room, she was terrified. She said to me, 'Please, don't let her find me!' when Sailor Obsidia arrived, I tried to defend Astera, but before I could even think, she had attacked and I was trapped. I failed her completely."

"Sailor Obsidia is not an easy opponent," Usagi said. "You did your best, right?" Ami nodded in reply. "Then, that's all you could've done. I believe Astera was really healed and that she's in great danger now."

"So do I," Ami said. They nodded in resolution; the other's would have to be convinced.

After school the following day, everyone met up at Crown except for Ami. She had taken the day off classes to continue to rest and recover, and she'd promised everyone that she would actually stay in bed. She was upset though; it would be her first absence in over eight years.

"I think she'll get over it," Makoto said.

"It's really important that she rests after a trial like that," Luna said, "especially if we are facing more challenges ahead."

"It's hard to say what we should do next," Makoto said. "I guess I just didn't expect anything to happen so soon."

"Or like this," Rei said.

"Sailor Astera was shocking enough, so close to the end of the battle with the Dark Moon," Luna said.

The mood was pretty tense. Artemis watched as Minako whirled her straw around and around in her thick milkshake. She was eyeing the trail of its path as it formed and melted, formed and melted. He could see she was deep in thought - a dangerous situation for a bubbly blonde.

"Are you all right, Minako?" he asked.

Minako sighed, and took a long sip of her drink, draining the glass of thick liquid halfway. She put the glass in the center of the table, but kept the straw in her mouth, chewing on the delicious end of it. Everyone stared at the glass.

"So..." Rei said uncertainly.

"The glass is half there," Minako said with serious significance.

"You mean, 'the glass is half full'?" Luna asked with a sigh.

"Whatever. What I'm saying is, there's a fifty-fifty chance, right? Either Astera is healed and she needs our help, or it's a trap and these two nutty sisters are going to try to come and kill us. Either way, shouldn't we try find them first?"

Though she hadn't quite gotten the point across as intellectually as she had intended, Rei and Makoto could see where she was coming from. Either way, it wasn't as if ignoring the problem would make it go away. If there was some action they could take to catch Sailor Obsidia off guard, get a preemptive strike against her, maybe they could beat her - or at the very least, get some answers.

"Yeah," Usagi said, sensing the others were coming around a little. "You know, we could check out that hotel and go scope out the room she was in! Maybe we can find something there."

"It's at least somewhere to start," Luna agreed. Minako reached for her glass and downed the rest of the milkshake.

"Let's go."

___________________________

Sailor Obsidia was pacing in a dark, silent room around a long, obsidian slab supported by ornately carved, spiraling arms that extended above into the darkness. The slab rose to her hips on one end, and dipped near the floor on the other. The center of the slab was hollowed out and lined with plush, black fabric patterned with deep blue currents that gave off an optical illusion of movement as she walked around it. Nestled in the fabric, a blonde girl lay wrapped in thin gauze of similar, shimmering material. It seemed tightest around her thin wrists and torso, as if it were trying to hold her there forever.

"I can sense your energy," she said to the silent figure. "You really are weakened. They took everything from us once already, and now they tried to take your great power and they tried to take you from me!"

Sailor Obsidia placed a cold, delicate hand on the forehead of the sleeping figure. Astera stirred slightly and whimpered. "I know, it's very troublesome," Obsidia continued, "but don't worry, my sister. Neither of us have to be alone or powerless any longer. I will bring you back to your full potential! Together, we will kill them!" She shouted now, reaching up into the darkness above her. "The full power of darkness shall be yours again, dear sister!"

A crackling noise grew louder and louder as streaks of dark fire poured down from above, dancing down the arms of the obsidian slab. "Come dark fire! Bless my sister with your great energy!"

As the fire engulfed the girl in the bedding, her eyes flashed open. She let out an ear piercing scream as the fabric around her limbs tightened and kept her locked in the flames. "Let the fire fill your soul sister, let me save you!"

In her pain, Astera could see through the flames to a face that was familiar but distant. She knew the features, somewhere deep in her heart. Still, the sight of that face pained her more than the dark energy that was being fed into her, giving her the sensation of burning from the insides. Sister, she had said - could it be? She could only fight the pressure of her restraints for so long. Eventually, she weakened, gave in, and her cries were silenced. The pain subsided as she gave way to the numbness and slipped into uneasy unconsciousness.


	5. Chapter 5

**Flames of Burden**

**A Sailor Moon Fanfiction**

**Story & Original Characters © 2007 Sarah Ruth Forde  
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon © 1992 Naoko Takeuchi/Kodansha, TOEI Animation.**

Chapter V

The area around the hotel had changed drastically since the blast two nights before. It was as if everyone in walking distance of the place had totally given up on living. Shops had closed down, people weren't going to their jobs, residents in the area spent the entire day in their homes, too sad to even think about going anywhere and to depressed to eat or get dressed. The awakening of Sailor Obsidia and the burden of her existence had already taken solid roots.

The four girls and two cats moved through the area quickly. People lay around on the streets, propped up against shop walls, starring at them blankly as they walked by. They all had pathetic looks on their faces, totally helpless, completely lost.

"What happened to them?" Minako whispered.

"It's as if they've lost all will to go on," Makoto said.

"Stay alert," Luna warned, "There is definitely something sinister here."

As they approached the hotel, it was clear the place had been completely abandoned. Though it had been sunny earlier, the sky over this section of the city was thick with dark clouds. Thunder rumbled over head as the four girls walked up the hotel steps. The tall glass doors were ajar; paper and leaves swirled in and out of the lobby with the wind. Usagi hesitated at the door.

"I know," Rei said, "it does feel like a trap."

"Let's go in first, Rei," Makoto said. "We'll check the first floor." Minako and Usagi nodded and the two girls walked through the open doorway. Usagi watched as they slipped into hallways and returned a few moments later to signal it was clear. They checked every section of the first floor they could enter, barring some locked conference rooms which could only be peered at through the small rectangle windows in their doors. Makoto and Rei returned unscathed and unalarmed. "The place looks totally deserted," Makoto said.

"All right, let's head up to the room," Usagi said. "Luna, Artemis, will you wait for us here?" They nodded.

"Then let's transform," Minako said. The four of them transformed in the lobby and Sailor Moon walked over to the elevator.

"Um, I think we should take the stairs," Sailor Mars said.

"What? Why?" Sailor Moon whined. "It's the twenty-sixth floor!"

"Yeah, but Sailor Moon, do you remeber the last time you got trapped in an elevator?" Sailor Jupiter said. "I really don't want to be in that situation if this _is_ a trap."

Sailor Moon sighed and turned back towards the stairs. She caught a sympathetic look from Sailor Venus and jabbed her in the ribs, trying to get someone on her side. "Ow!" was all Venus said in reply, and the four senshi started their ascent.

As they neared the targeted floor, the smell of burnt material became overwhelming and filled their every breath. Jupiter was the first to reach the designated floor, and she cautiously opened the stairway door and peered down the hall. It was wide with doors along both sides at even intervals. At the end, there was a rounded out sitting area which looked, through the charred remains, like it might have been quite nice at one time. Remnants of charred furniture lay scattered about; a large, rounded picture window had been smashed out by the blaze and a crystal vase had melted into an organic pool of glass on the floor. The metal curtain rod over the window had been twisted and melted by the intense fire and hung dangling from its fixture on one side. The walls and floor were blackened with soot that had been soaked into everything by the sprinkler system. If was clear that system had been totally overwhelmed by the blaze of unnatural proportions; the sprinklers heads had also melted and twisted off the ceiling.

The four of them carefully made their way down the hall with Jupiter and Venus in the lead, followed by Sailor Moon and then Sailor Mars.

"Can you feel anything?" Sailor Venus asked.

"Yes," Mars said, "it's faint, but there is something here that I recognize."

"Is it Sailor Obsidia?" Sailor Moon asked. She was suddenly a little nervous about the plan to check this place out. She'd honestly expected to find nothing of consequence, but it was definitely apparent that they were likely to be walking into a trap.

"It's strange," Sailor Mars said as they crept forward, "I get the same feeling from this place as I did from the hospital yesterday. It's a terrible weight on my conscious. Can you feel it?"

Sailor Moon nodded as a familiar sense of hopelessness played at the edge of her mind. The other two soldiers looked at one another with questions on their faces. Clearly, they weren't sensing the same thing. The four of them reached the end of the hall where the next hall split perpendicularly. The wind seemed to be sucking the air out of the hotel and offered no breath of fresh air. Jupiter looked at the numbers of the rooms beside them and peered around the corner.

"The room she was staying in should be right around this corner, on the outer wall, to the left." The smell of burned material was stronger down at that end; they could taste it. Sailor Venus crouched at the corner and peered around it. There was no movement or indication that anything was amiss in the second hall. All the doors along the hallway, though blacked with soot, were closed.

"Let's go," Jupiter said. She and Venus leapt forward and covered the distance to the targeted room. Without hesitation, Sailor Jupiter turned the knob and pushed the door open. The wood around the frame of the door had been so heavily weakened by the blaze that Jupiter's motions literally ripped it from its hinges. The entire door and parts of the surrounding wall went crumbling into the room in a cascade of ash and soot.

The two of them were thrown into a coughing fit as they tried to shield their eyes and nose from the scattering, miniscule debris. Sailor Mars and Sailor Moon rushed out at the sound of the collapse thinking it had been an attack.

Once the air had settled a bit, Jupiter had a hard time containing her laughter in between coughs with tears in her eyes. The room behind the door was completely empty, hollowed out by flames to the barest materials of the building. It didn't look safe to enter.

"Are you all right?" Sailor Moon asked as she bounced back and forth between her friends. "What happened?"

Sailor Venus let herself laugh a little too after the shock subsided.

"Come on," Sailor Jupiter said, "This isn't some secret base. Let's go back."

"What about all the people outside?" Sailor Moon said as they were going down the stairs again. "We can't just leave them like that."

"Even if Obsidia isn't still in the hotel, something's really wrong in this place." Sailor Mars said. She suggested they help people try to evacuate the area, but when they returned to their civilian clothing and exited the building, the found authorities were already doing so.

A man in a bulky hazmat suit approached them at an awkward pace waving his hands, "This is a quarantined area!" he shouted through his ventilation, "All residents must evacuate immediately! There are dangerous levels of radiation in this area from the meteor. You'll have to come in for testing."

Knowing full well that the devastating effects on the area were not from cosmic radiation, the four girls opted to hightail it out of there. Mr. Hazmat tried to call to them for them to return, shouting government regulations, but his cumbersome suit prevented him from moving very fast and the four girls easily left the effected area and returned to the temple. They all agreed that there was likely nothing more significant about the hotel room than the remnants Obsidia's awakening slowly draining the area of all hope.

Luna suggested the effects of this situation could have an spreading impact on the area until Obsidia was defeated.

"So the whole city is in danger of falling into that terrible situation?" Usagi asked.

"I ran a simulation," Artemis said, "if it continues to spread at the rate it has been since two nights ago, the whole city will be swallowed by mind numbing depression in less than thirty six hours."

"That's terrible!" Minako said, "We have to find Sailor Obsidia and stop this."

Meanwhile, Mamoru had been pacing in his apartment. He had also taken the day off from classes, and his notes from various assignments were neatly organized in a pile on his desk. He couldn't work on anything; something kept nagging at him, but he couldn't place it. He had spent the whole morning going over what he could remember of the battle with Sailor Astera, and he kept returning to the cat Demitrius. The girls didn't seem to trust the cat very much, but something about him made Mamoru believe he could rely on the cat's word. Why should he feel that way about a guardian that had abated Astera's reign of destruction?

He decided he had to get out of the apartment. He called Usagi's house, but Shingo told him she had gone out with everyone right after school. So, he grabbed his helmet and jacket and took off back towards the only place he could think of to find more answers: the ice rink.

Construction had ended for the day. Mamoru parked the bike discretely and began pacing around the outskirts of the barriers once more. The large pieces of concrete from the other day had been moved and the area looked a lot cleaner for it. The new building was going up fast.

He sat down on one of the benches that lined a walkway beside the road. The area the rink was in was only a half mile or so from the beach; he could smell the salt in the air. The wind was rushing through the small shrubs which lined the property of the office building behind him. Suddenly, he could sense that someone was there. He tensed.

"Please don't be alarmed," a deep voice said. Demitrius emerged from the edge of the line of bushed and walked down the sidewalk towards Mamoru with a slight limp as he favored his left front paw. Still, his face was determined. "It's fate you should be here right now," he said. "I had hoped to speak with you privately, but I was concerned to confront you with the others around."

Mamoru watched as Demitrius closed the distance to a respectable few feet and sat on the ground waiting for his reply.

"What is it you want?" he asked the cat.

"I need your help," he said, "desperately. I know you can understand what I am going through. You would do anything to save her, right?" Mamoru didn't have to ask who he meant. "Of course."

"I too feel the same about my princess." He bowed his head, took a few steps forward, and leapt up on the opposite end of the bench. "If you will permit me," he said, "I'd like to tell you how I came to be so devoted to her." Mamoru nodded in response.

"It was years ago," Demitrius started, "but it is truly clear to me. At that time, I was a reconnaissance scout for the second Silver Millennium, ruled by your future wife, Serenity. After the creation of Crystal Tokyo, many of our people from Mau were recruited to aid the royal family in oversight of the solar system. With the guarding powers of the Silver Crystal, we were able to spread out among the planets to keep an eye on things and alert the guardians if something was amiss.

"I myself was assigned a top priority mission just after the rebels of Nemesis attacked from their dark moon. Sent to the hellish place alone, I was asked to maintain anonymity and watch their movements as the stalemate with the battle on Earth progressed. It was there I found her.

"She was terrified, alone and looked to me no more than a child. She was being forced away from someone she cared about dearly, and I could tell that her guardians intended her no good will. I befriended her in secret, and we grew to know each other very well. My suspicions began to grow that this girl was actually the heir of the destroyed kingdom of Astera. I held off notification to the crystal city because I knew how limited their resources were in the battle against the Dark Moon. As the stalemate progressed, the girl was treated more and more harshly by her angry guardians. They took their frustrations out on her physically and mentally, making her soul dark and cold.

"Then something drastic changed in her. When she began speaking in her sleep, I feared the worst. It was now clear that she was in contact with the great sorcerer, her father Yukio, the dead king of Astera. I tried reasoning with her, telling her that his accounts of the events on Astera might not have taken place they way he had told her, but her hatred and dismay in the world had all ready corrupted her soul. All she wanted then was revenge. She grew very strong in her will, and the people on Nemesis began to avoid her.

"I knew I couldn't stop the darkness from growing within her. But there was another secret she had hidden from me. On that dark moon, there was another child that had been brought from Astera. Though they were not sisters by blood, the younger girl had been a loving adopted child of the royal family of Astera. The girls had been sent seperated when they had arrived on Nemesis. The princess I had grown to care for deeply had no hope of finding her childhood friend until the memories of her Father invoked a connection between them.

"One night, she told me, 'I will go to my sister, and we will bond our souls with my father's dark power. Together, we can destroy the White Moon!' I knew that my time was at its end; I had to contact Crystal Tokyo to tell them what dark seeds were being planted on Nemesis. That night, I tried to leave, but she caught me as I rose from her bedside. There was fear in her eyes, something I hadn't seen since she'd found her new mission of revenge.

"'Don't go,' she pleaded with me. And I could see it in her eyes, I was the only one on the miserable dark moon she truly trusted. At that moment, I realized I was in love with her. I could not bring myself to betray her.

"I watched a transaction of power that night so sinful and mad that I could not believe what I was witnessing. When the princess found her estranged sister, they were both enveloped in a massive force field of dark energy. I saw a brilliant light emerge from my princess' chest and I cringed as she screamed in pain. I wanted to go to her, but the power of the energy kept me away.

"The light from her spirit formed into an amethyst crystal. Then, half its light drained away from it into a diamond seed her sister held, floating in front of her chest. The space the drained power had left was filled quickly with very powerful, massively negative energy from the surrounding field. Her sister's crystal also received some of this power, and with a burst of raging energy, two suited sailor soldiers appeared.

"I could not understand at first. I knew my princess was the heir to the powers of Astera, but I did not understand how the other girl, with no blood ties to the royal family, could have obtained such a form. But then I realized, their power had been shared. The true power of the soldier of Astera had been divided between them, supplemented with the dark powers of Nemesis which Yukio had manipulated.

"She was completely changed after that - cruel, vicious, and hungry for power. Her sister chose the name Obsidia to go with the blacked stone she carried. Sailor Astera did not want the competition. She was manipulated by her father's spirit to seal Obsidia away, telling her it was too dangerous when in fact, she felt the strongest desire to take revenge for her true father on her own. She told the younger girl that she would come for her after the battle. Naive and unsure of her new powers, Obsidia believed her and remained sealed while Sailor Astera returned to this past. It was all part of Yukio's plan.

"You know what happened," Demitrius said with pain in his voice. "I knew I couldn't change the path she had taken, but I desperately wanted to atone for my sins. I hated what she had become, and I knew I would have to betray her to save her. When I leapt into Usagi's arms in the park that night, I revealed myself, and I reveled Sailor Astera. I did all I could to lead Sailor Moon and her friends to the truth about her. I left that book of Crystal Tokyo history for Sailor Mercury to find. I knew that with the right knowledge of Astera's past they would have the power to heal her. I had to act like I was helping Sailor Astera do all those terrible things, while playing the other side of the game. It got completely out of my control.

"Fortunately, your princess has a stronger will," Demitrius shook his head. "Her soul was saved, the dark power was cleansed by the purity of the White Moon, but she could not remain a true soldier. Without the other half of her true powers, she could not sustain her physical form. What was left of her spirit was saved in a small pendant that your princess found."

"The amethyst necklace?" Mamoru asked. "Something was released from it. Was that was Astera?"

Demitrius nodded, "Sailor Obsidia broke free from her solitude when her sister did not return. Yukio reawakened her. It was his plan all along that she should be the back up in case Sailor Astera failed. Sailor Obsidia's full awakening has called Astera's soul from its peaceful slumber. It longs to be reunited with its other half, but it will not come to pass so peacefully."

"What will Sailor Obsidia do?" Mamoru asked, "She can't have power herself if she gives it away to Astera."

"I don't know what will happen! I am so scared for her, you have to help me find her!" Demitrius said with sudden panic and tears in his eyes. "Sailor Obsidia will likely fill Astera's soul with dark powers again! She will reawaken as a soldier of revenge! Please, help her!" Demitrius broke down into sobs and turned away from Mamoru. "I want to save her," he said quietly. "I want her soul to be free, I don't care what it takes."

Mamoru took in all he had heard and felt a burden lift from his heart. Now he knew the sensation he had felt from this creature was a resonance of his own love for Usagi. He understood what it meant to be willing to give it all for someone, and he knew that Demitrius was completely sincere. Worst of all, he knew that Demitrius was now in a place of despair, for he felt that it was his fault that his princess was now once again in great danger.

"What can I do." Mamoru asked. "How can I help?"

Demitrius turned back to him. His one good eye was bloodshot and brimming with tears. "The crystal," he said, "If you get me the amethyst pendant, maybe I can reach her."

"I will talk with the others," Mamoru said. "Will you come with me?" Demitrius paused with a moment of uncertainty. "They will understand," Mamoru assured him. Demitrius nodded, and followed the dark haired man towards the temple.

The five girls sat along one of the temple porches. Ami had rested the entire day, but could not stand to be away from the mission for longer than that. They were filling her in on all the details and trying to come up with a plan.

"So there was absolutely nothing at the hotel?" Ami asked.

"Nothing we could see that would indicate Sailor Obsidia is working from there," Makoto said, "but there's still some strange energy around the area." "I heard on the news that they were evacuating for radiation," Ami said.

"We saw the teams," Minako replied. "At least that will get people out of the area."

"Luna and Artemis think that it will spread," Usagi said. "They are afraid the effects of Obsidia's awakening will cover the whole city soon. They've gone back to take some more observations of the area. We think stopping Sailor Obsidia is the only way to help."

Their conversation ceased as a tall silhouette reached the top of the temple stairs and approached them across the grounds. The sun was setting behind the figure, distorting its appearance. The girls gathered around Usagi instinctively, defensively.

Usagi shielded her eyes from the sun and could just make out the dark tufts of hair that crowned her lover's head. She sprung up from the porch and ran over to him, embracing his waist. "Where've you been?" she asked. "We went to the hotel again, but there was nothing."

"There's something I need to speak to you all about," he said, looking past Usagi to the others. They could tell from his tone of voice that it was quite serious. Once Mamoru had some time to prep the girls, he asked Demitrius to come out from where he was hiding. He will still very nervous to be in front of them, and though he tried to look them straight in the eye, he found that his confidence faltered and he could only stare at the ground in front of him.

Ami was shocked but happy to have the mysterious origins of the legends book solved. Usagi had been very broken up by the story altogether, but she felt that knowing Demitrius had helped them in the battle with Astera would dissolve all concern the others had about trusting him. "Rei," she said, "you still have the pendant, right?" Rei nodded, and went to retrieve the amethyst stone.

"What can we do?" Makoto asked. "How will this help?"

"The crystal is still linked to Astera," Demitrius said, his voice shaking. "If we can contact her somehow, perhaps we can find out where she is so we can save her."

"You really believe in her," Minako said with understanding.

"We will do all we can to help," Usagi added. Demitrius nodded and looked anxiously at the crystal when Rei returned with it.

"There's been nothing from it since Usagi gave it to me," she said. "Is there some way to activate it?"

"I am not even sure it will work," Demitrius said honestly, "but, it's all I could think to try." Rei placed the crystal on the ground in front of Demitrius and everyone stood up around it. Demitrius moved slowly around the crystal, examining its features and dull, grayed surface. He finally approached it, sat beside it, and placed his injured leg over the crystal and closed his eyes.

"Please," he said, "help me find her." As the sun dipped below the horizon, the whole sky turned a cool shade of violet. For a moment it seemed as if Demitrius' hopes would be dashed, but then the others witnessed a brilliant change in the appearance of the crystal. Its core lit up again, brightly and warmly flooding the circle of friends with a shimmering halo of lavender.

"Everyone, let's try to help," she said. She clutched Mamoru's and Rei's hands and the others linked together to form a circle around Demitrius and the crystal. In a flash, they were all transformed into their sailor outfits. "Please work," Sailor Moon thought as she felt the power flowing between them.

In the haze of the light, Sailor Moon could see Demitrius focusing intently on reaching his princess. It was hard to make out his form in the light and as she focused her thoughts, she thought she could see Astera in the light with Demitrius. Her figure, thin and lithe, could barely be seen there in the light, hovering with long, cascading golden hair surrounding her. Another figure appeared beside her, tall, broad and strong. His arms wrapped tightly around her and she placed her head on his chest.

When Usagi opened her eyes, she was lying on the ground surrounded by her friends. Slowly everyone else came to. Albeit disoriented, they had all witnessed the same vision Usagi had seen.

"Is everyone okay?" Mamoru asked. They girls all replied they were.

"Did you find your answer?" Usagi asked, turning to Demitrius.

"They are in Obsidia's attack somewhere," Demitrius said as he got to his feet. The crystal had vanished. "We have to locate a place where the burden of life has totally overwhelmed all things."

"But that's the hotel," Usagi said.

"We went there and saw nothing," Minako said. Then she realized it - they saw **nothing**. Anything inside Sailor Obsidia's attack wouldn't have been visible to them! The other girls also put the pieces together.

"You have to go tonight," Luna's voice echoed across the temple grounds as she and Artemis approached. "The burden is spreading far faster than we imagined."


	6. Chapter 6

**Flames of Burden**

**A Sailor Moon Fanfiction**

**Story & Original Characters © 2007 Sarah Ruth Forde  
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon © 1992 Naoko Takeuchi/Kodansha, TOEI Animation.**

Chapter VI

Sailor Obsidia moved around the dark slab with caution; something had just changed in the air around them. A faint glow had risen around Astera just a moment ago and it had completely repelled the dark powers Obsidia had been challenging into the girl's body. She looked over Astera's passive face and caught a glimpse of a blush and the hint of a smile as the glow around her faded; someone had been in contact with Astera.

Obsidia sat down on a small section of the slab that extended to catch her weight. She ran a cold thin hand across Astera's brow, pushing strands of blonde hair affectionately from her face. "Who could've tried to reach you?" she asked. "Who could care for you more than I?" Astera's lids shifted slightly as her violet eyes barely opened.

"Sailor Obsidia?" she asked.

"Yes, my sweet sister," Obsidia said, leaning forward. "Tell me, how much do you remember?"

Astera closed her eyes again and her face expressed pain as if the memories they spoke of hurt physically. "What are you doing to me?" she asked instead of answering.

"I am healing you," Obsidia replied with silvery tears in her deep blue eyes. "Can't you see what they have taken from you? Your home, your loved ones, your power - all torn from you without remorse. I am going to revive you."

Astera also had tears in her eyes, though they seeped out thought the tightly clenched corners. She seemed for a moment too weak to reply, then she whispered, "Please, don't." Obsidia slipped into a momentary state of shock. After all the energy she had lovingly bestowed, that could not be her thanks. Then she came to slowly formulate her own understanding of the situation: not only had these people robbed her sister of her divine powers, they had also brainwashed her.

"It's too terrible," Obsidia said with honest pain in her voice as she fell along the stone and wept. "I will do everything I can for you dear sister. Tell me, which of them tried to contact you just now?" Astera flinched and did not reply. "You won't tell me then?" Obsidia asked. "I see. They have a strong hold on you, but you have no reason to fear me. I will help release you from this twisted illusion." Obsidia grasped one of the carved tendrils that extended endlessly into the darkness above. At her touch, the stone activated with a fiery blue light that was echoed by a field of energy growing around Obsidia. With eyes closed, she forced the power to flow from her body into the channels of the stone. Astera's body lurched upward and the glimmering restraints held her back as she screamed into the darkness. Obsidia's tears continued to fall as she pressed the power from her body. This kind of pain hurt her much less than seeing her idol in such a weakened state.

After a few moments, Sailor Obsidia was forced to stop. She lay with the upper half of her body slumped along the slab beside her sister, panting to catch her breath. Astera's body was alight with power from the contact and her skin shimmered with a violet glow; Obsidia knew she was close.

"You have to stop," Astera said softly with her eyes still clenched shut.

"I won't," Obsidia replied with effort. She reached out to Astera and tried to grasp her hand but Astera sensed the movement and pulled away from her touch. At this, Obsidia cried out in anguish.

"You will destroy yourself," Astera said with more force. "I don't remember all of it," she continued, "but I know, your powers are my powers. If you give them away, you will have nothing else."

"To see you," Obsidia replied through her sobs, still reaching out, "I will give anything to see you as you once were."

"I was wrong," Astera said, opening her eyes to face this forlorn soldier. "My father was wrong."

"Our father!" Obsidia shouted, with renewed energy. "He gave us everything!" She grasped the stone tendril again and Astera screamed in agony as more dark fire poured in around her. Sailor Obsidia found the strength to stand again as she clutched a second stone tendril with her other hand and used it to support her body. Her deep blue hair whipped around her wildly from the surge of energy and her eyes were alight with reckless power, but she could feel the connection deepen, so she persisted. "You will rise again, Sailor Astera!" she shouted into the darkness around them.

As the five soldiers, Tuxedo Mask and three cats left for the hotel, they knew immediately what Luna had said was an understatement. All around them, the city was turning gray and growing dark, right up to the steps of the temple. They passed empty shops and desolate parks as they walked down vacant sidewalks. Occasionally, someone would pass by them with a look of hopelessness in their eyes. Sailor Jupiter clutched on of these people by the shoulders and tried to get them to react to her by shouting at them.

"Please Jupiter," Sailor Mercury said, "I don't think that will help."

"Well, honestly," Jupiter said, releasing the girl and watching her wander away. They moved through the city without incident as they made their way to the hotel building. It appeared much the way it had earlier in the day. To their surprise, a few men in hazmat suits remained laying around the streets as they approached the hotel. Their helmets were off and they were staring into the depressing nothingness that had gripped everything around them.

The soldiers moved quickly past these depressing scenes; they knew the only way to save these people was to stop Sailor Obsidia, but first, they had to reach her. Sailor Moon walked closely behind Tuxedo Mask. He glanced back once in a while to see her watching her own feet. When they entered the building lobby they gathered together.

"So, here's the plan," Tuxedo Mask said, "Demitrius believes he can convince Sailor Obsidia to allow him to enter the space she has created by telling her he is here to help her revive Sailor Astera. Once the portal is open, we should all be able to enter the attack."

"Then what?" Sailor Venus asked.

"Well," Demitrius said, "that's going to have to be sort of done on instinct."

"Great," Sailor Mars sighed.

"There are two possible scenarios that we will encounter," Demitrius said. "The first is that Sailor Obsidia will be alone, trying to revive Sailor Astera. The second is that she's already succeeded in reviving Sailor Astera."

"If that's the case," Sailor Moon said, "I will go to her. Even if Sailor Obsidia causes Astera to reawaken with her dark powers, I know that she still has a true soldier within her. I can help her." The others nodded. It would be their job to hold Sailor Obsidia off while Sailor Moon cleansed Astera.

"What about Obsidia, though?" Sailor Mercury asked. "Can she be healed?"

Demitrius shook his head, "It's possible, but unlikely. Unlike Sailor Astera, Sailor Obsidia had no bloodline connection to the Moon Kingdom or the Asterian Kingdom. Since Astera's body has been reborn, she has likely lost her connection to the Moon Kingdom as well. If Sailor Astera has been revived, removing the dark power from her will fill her with the holy power of the Moon again."

"She will take on the form I saw after the battle?" Sailor Moon asked.

Demitrius nodded, "What is left of her crystal's original power and your powers of the Moon will combine in the way they would have before. But the same isn't true for Sailor Obsidia. Her powers are a combination of dark energy from King Yukio and the power from Astera's amethyst. If you cleanse her, she will lose all of those powers and she will be left with nothing."

"What about her true spirit," Sailor Mars, "isn't there anything left of that within her?" The other soldiers looked to Demitrius for an answer, but it seemed he had none.

"So, we really don't know what will happen," Sailor Jupiter said. The others nodded with understanding; they were just going to have to jump in head first and hope for the best. What fun.

"We will stay here," Luna said, referring to herself and Artemis. The others nodded as they made their way across the tiled lobby. They ascended the stairway quickly but quietly, and made there way to the destroyed section of the wall. The soldiers stayed back in the hallway while Demitrius picked his way into the charred space.

"Sailor Astera?" he began, "I've, um, sensed your dark powers have awakened! I have come to serve you once more! Please reveal yourself to me!"

Sailor Obsidia broke the hold from the obsidian tendrils and turned her ear to the space around her. She leaned on the cool slab for a moment, catching her breath, but she was sure she had heard a voice. Raising her hand, a misty layer of space appeared in front of her. Through the haze she could see the brown form of a fluffy cat standing in a charcoal room. It must have been he that contacted Astera. She listened again for the sound of his voice. Here to help? She hardly thought so. Reaching through the mist, Sailor Obsidia extended a hand into the real space in the hotel room. She grasped Demitrius by the throat and squeezed as he let out a choked yelp.

The soldiers in the hall heard Demitrius' yelp and rushed forward into the room. "Demitrius!" Sailor Moon shouted as they entered the space. They caught a glimpse of the puffy end of his tail as it slipped into the portal. The haze vanished.

"This was NOT one of the possible scenarios," Sailor Mars said.

Sailor Mercury had been quick with her goggles and she caught the end of the misty haze just long enough to get a reading. She was analyzing it. "That was an opening to the attack, right?" Sailor Moon asked. Sailor Mercury nodded.

"Can we force our way in?" Sailor Jupiter asked.

"If I can work out the axis coordinates of the space she's created I can try to reopen the portal," Sailor Mercury said as she typed variables into her mini computers. The others waited anxiously.

Meanwhile, Sailor Obsidia had restrained Demitrius with shimmering blue fabric on a smaller but similar obsidian slab slightly above the foot of the one Astera rested in. She was enraged. "Why have you brought them here?" she spat. Demitrius refused to answer and Sailor Obsidia doused him in a helping dark fire. He screamed in agony and the sound of his voice caused Astera to open her eyes. She was caught it a strange state of consciousness; Obsidia's dark powers had begun to distort her memory and her vision. She could see Obsidia in front of her, torturing something or someone. It was crying out in pain, but for some reason, she didn't feel sympathetic. Growing inside Astera was the urge to join the blue fire soldier and birth a new era of terror.

As she sat up on the obsidian slab, the shimmering restraints fell from her body. Sailor Obsidia ceased her attack on Demitrius and looked over at Astera with delight: resting in her opened palm was a glimmering amethyst crystal.

"Super-Dimensional Space Emergence!"

There was a bright flash of blue light and a hazy section of the space rippled open beside the stone slab. The sailor team and Tuxedo Mask came pouting through the opening all at once and the area quickly sealed off behind them.

"Sailor Obsidia!" Sailor Moon said with a serious authority, "let them go."

Sailor Obsidia was shocked to see the soldiers had broken into her sacred space on their own, but she was actually glad they had arrived at just that moment. The show was about to begin. Sailor Obsidia left Demitrius unconscious in his restrains as she slipped beside Astera. Astera was still sitting on the edge of the stone slab, her entire body alight with violet energy as she gazed blankly into the crystal in her hand. Sailor Obsidia pressed a fingertip to Astera's chin and raised her face so that her eyes looked forward at the other soldiers.

"They've come," Sailor Obsidia whispered in her ear, "the Princess of the White Moon is here for your taking."

All present, including Sailor Obsidia, were thrown back by the explosion of power that shook the stone tendrils of the slab until they shattered into glittering dust. The large stone and the smaller one fell to the dark surface below and splintered into fragments that fractured into smaller fragments until the whole area was filled with tiny sparkling particles rising into the darkness above. The fall awakened Demitrius who, though dazed, managed to clear himself of danger and run to the sailor soldiers.

Floating in the midst of rising glow was the lone figure of Astera, twirling slowly with arms outstretched into a purple glow that surrounded her. Over her open palms, the amethyst crystal floated. Its sudden purple light erupted with a terrible sound that shook the foundations of Obsidia's attack and blasted its dimensional fabric apart. Floor sections of the charred hotel room crumbled to the level below. The senshi clung to one another as they slipped through the structure and fought to avoid falling sections of the building. A secondary explosion ripped through the space echoing into the darkened city as sections of the outer wall crumbled and fell to the ground outside.

The blast threw Astera's hair straight up as a deep blackish purple color faded over the blonde strands from roots to tips. As she turned, the crystal's light fell to her body where the glimmering light produced a bodice of white. As she lowered her arms, her purple heart-shaped brooch appeared, a glittering amethyst gem at its center. From it sprang a bow of black with three prongs and wide bow tails. On the next revolution, her skirt and black bow formed. Astera ran her crystal along her skirt forming a wide purple band along the bottom. With a thrust upward, her gloves materialized on her arms and hands. As she floated slowly downward, her boots appeared on her feet. She touched down among the chaotic scene beside Sailor Obsidia who had also fallen in the collapse. Sailor Astera opened her eyes and placed a hand on the younger soldier's shoulder.

Sailor Obsidia looked up with admiration and praise, "Sailor Astera," she said, "I am so pleased to see you."

Sailor Astera nodded and helped Obsidia to stand. The other soldiers regrouped and helped one another out from the debris of the falling floor. Sailor Moon was stuck with dismay at the sight of Sailor Astera. "No," she whispered.

"Oh yes," Sailor Astera said sinisterly, "it wasn't as if you power over me would hold forever, Moon Princess."

"I can't believe this!" Sailor Moon said with tears in her eyes. "I know this isn't what you want!"

"What she wants?!" Sailor Obsidia scoffed. "What the hell would you know about what we want!" Sailor Astera held a hand up to Obsidia to silence her. The blue fire soldier backed down as Sailor Astera grinned.

"I want what I have always wanted," she said, "your body, lifeless. And that crystal with its rightful owner!"

Tuxedo Mask stepped in front of Sailor Moon along with the other four soldiers. Sailor Astera couldn't help but laugh aloud now. After all the princess put them through, they stood by her. Why? "Fools, all of you!" she shouted without laughter as she lunged at them. Taking the cue, Sailor Obsidia launched her attack as well.

"Obsidia Illumin Sear!"  
"Amethyst Dynamic Burn!"  
"Mercury Aqua Mirage!"  
"Rolling Heart Vibration!"

Tuxedo Mask took the brunt of Astera's attack while Mercury and Venus tried to counter Obsidia's attack with their own. Tuxedo Mask was thrown through the wall behind them. Sailor Moon called out to him, but Sailor Astera had already made her next move. Sailor Moon turned to block Astera's assault but Sailor Jupiter was there to defend her. Sailor Astera and Sailor Jupiter dueled for a moment while Sailor Venus, Mars and Mercury cornered Sailor Obsidia.

"Now Sailor Moon!" Sailor Jupiter said, as she tossed Astera rather violently over her back and onto the floor.

Sailor Moon stepped forward and produced her scepter, "Moon Healing Escalation!" she shouted as the white light poured from the wand. Sailor Astera was blasted with the attack head on. She stood from her place on the floor as if nothing had happened. She pushed Sailor Jupiter away and the other soldiers watched with shock as Sailor Astera ran right through the attack and knocked Sailor Moon clear off her feet, clutching the weapon and breaking it in half above her head.

"Impossible!" Sailor Venus said. Sailor Obsidia took the opportunity to break from the soldier's grasp and move into an offensive position. Sailor Mars and Mercury tried to regain control of her as Sailor Venus ran to Sailor Moon. "Sailor Moon!" she called to her as she knelt down beside her. Sailor Moon opened her eyes and looked up at Sailor Venus with tears of confusion. "Here, get up," Sailor Venus said as she helped her friend.

"I want her on her knees!" Sailor Astera shouted as she clutched Sailor Venus' head by the hair near her scalp and pulled her up and away from Sailor Moon. Venus hollered with pain as the dark soldier slammed a knee into her abdomen and throw her back towards the other soldiers.

Sailor Moon was in fact on her knees, halfway to where Venus had intended to bring her. Sailor Astera walked up to her and grasped her neck with both hands. Sailor Moon's eyes filled with more tears as she struggled to breathe. She placed her hands on Astera's lightly and tried to open her eyes. "I know what you really want," she said laboriously.

"Disgusting!" Sailor Astera said, as she threw Sailor Moon backwards onto the floor again. "You are all filthy liars!"

Sailor Moon slowly rose to her feet with sincere effort. Sailor Obsidia's battle with the other soldiers came to a shocked pause as a brilliant white light emanated from Sailor Moon's brooch. "I won't let you stay this way," she said as the light steadily grew.

Astera recognized the glow and a smile played across her face. Sailor Obsidia laughed heartily.

"Your little trick won't work this time," Sailor Obsidia scoffed from across the room. "I've embodied her with so much dark power, there's no way you can overwhelm it!" She laughed manically as she ripped herself free from Sailor Mars' grip and blasted a stream of blue fire across to Sailor Mercury.

"It's true," Demitrius said, "I feel it within her! She's much stronger than ever before," he said with mounting fear.

Sailor Moon's eyes were wide with fear at the thought. For a moment, she sat there trembling, staring at her useless hands where the Ginzuishou pulse flickered and slowed. Sailor Astera laughed and move towards them. She lifted a golden hilted dagger from the air and pressed the blade against her cheek. "My my," she cooed, "it's a pity, your man isn't here to save you." Sailor Moon cast a glance across the room at Tuxedo Mask lying in the corner. He wasn't dead of course, just unconcious. Fortunately, she hadn't suffered the same emotional struggles she had faced the last time she fought Astera.

Considering this, she felt a little stronger. This battle was not over! She wouldn't believe that it was all going to end this way. There was just something missing in their fight, something on the edge of her mind that shouted not to give up just yet.

"Demitrius," Sailor Moon said, "you must believe in yourself." The cat looked into her eyes and saw new resolution. The stone within her hands began to grow with light and pulse again and Demitrius began to understand. There was enough love in this world to cleanse Astera's darkness from her, they just had to be a team.

Moving forward, Demitrius stood between Sailor Moon and Sailor Astera. "I will help save you, my princess," he said as he shut his eyes. They both backed away from him slightly as an intense silver light grew rapidly from his body. Sailor Moon shielded her eyes as the form beneath the light elongated and grew taller into the space between them. Bright violet lights swirled around the form as flourishes of yellow beams flowed into the room intermittently.

In a flurry of bright bursts of glittering light, the over all glow began to subside. In place of the fluffy brown cat stood a tall man with dark skin the color of chocolate. He was dressed in decorative robes with some armor; a gleaming sword was hilted on his belt. His dark blonde hair was tussled and just long enough to cover the white scar and dead eye on the left side of what was otherwise a handsome and refined face.

A soft glow clung to him as he moved towards Sailor Astera.

"Don't you go near her!" Sailor Obsidia shouted as she struggled under the hold of Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Mars.

"Get away!" Sailor Astera echoed the sentiment as she backed away trembling. As he approached her, she fell to her knees her face upturned in a combination of fear and longing.

"Please, my princess," the familiar deep voice said, "I believe there is still good in you." As he knelt down in front of her, their lips met and he embraced her in a passionate kiss. Sailor Astera blushed deeply, but felt her whole body giving way to the warmth growing inside. The edge of her anger was fading and she felt renewed as they pulled apart and gazed into his eyes. Her hand reached up to touch his hair as she brushed it aside to see the scarred side of his face. He flinched, and tried to turn away from her touch, but her eyes held him steadily. Sailor Moon watched the reunion with tears in her eyes. A strong hand on her shoulder caused her to look up with surging hope. Beside her Tuxedo Mask stood, holding a hand out to her. "Let's save her," he said. Her raised Sailor Moon up to her feet and she turned towards Sailor Astera.

"Are you ready?" she asked as she lifted her crystal into the air in front of her. Sailor Astera nodded and pressed her hands tightly into Demitrius' before stepping towards Sailor Moon. She knew she didn't want this dark power within her anymore. She wanted to be free!

"Sailor Astera! No!" Sailor Obsidia shouted as Astera moved into the cleansing holy light of the Ginzuishou.


	7. Chapter 7

**Flames of Burden**

**A Sailor Moon Fanfiction**

**Story & Original Characters © 2007 Sarah Ruth Forde  
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon © 1992 Naoko Takeuchi/Kodansha, TOEI Animation.**

Chapter VII

Sailor Astera's body felt light and pure as the Ginzuishou's powers washed over her. As before, her amethyst crystal's casing shattered, releasing the glowing orb within. It floated towards the brooch on her chest which lit up brilliantly as the light floated slowly into her chest. Sailor Moon and the others watched with relief as the dark energy was drawn out of Astera's body. As it curled upwards and vanished, Sailor Obsidia cried out with rage. She thrashed about under the hold of the other senshi and screamed for Sailor Moon to leave Astera alone.

Slowly, Sailor Astera's outfit faded into opposite colors: what was black became purple, what was purple became black. From roots to tips, her hair was cleansed of darkness by a wave of white energy which left shimmering blond hair in its wake. The final part of the transformation was the formation of a golden tiara on her forehead, accented with a amethyst stone at its center. At the sight of it, Sailor Obsidia was truly overwhelmed.

As the light from the crystal faded, Obsidia slipped to the floor, still clutched by the other four soldiers. Sailor Astera stood still for a moment, unsure of her energy in this state. She knew the powers of the moon would only allow her to remain as a healed soldier for a brief moment and she was determined to save Obsidia. She looked to Sailor Moon and Demitrius and they nodded. Sailor Astera turned towards the others and motioned for them to release Obsidia. They did so only after Sailor Moon indicated it was all right.

"Don't come near me," Sailor Obsidia as Sailor Astera approached. She sat slumped on the floor, head down, with her face shrouded by hair. Her open hands rested beside her. "I am sick of being lied to."

"There are certain things you need to know," Sailor Astera said. "I know you've always believed that you were meant to carry these powers, but the truth is, you are not a true soldier." Sailor Obsidia did not react, she just remained where she was. The other soldiers weren't sure what to do, so they gathered around Sailor Moon. Sailor Astera continued: "The man you know as your father took you into the family as a means to his own end," she said, "it was wrong of him to use you that way."

Sailor Obsidia did not move or respond. For a moment, Sailor Moon considered the opportunity to try to heal her, but then she remembered Demitrius' warning. She moved closer to Tuxedo Mask.

"Anya," Sailor Astera said. "That's what they call you on Earth, right?"

At the sound of her Earth-given name Sailor Obsidia looked up with a fire in her eyes shocked Sailor Astera and the others. They stepped back as a blue fire grew around the fallen soldier.

"On Earth?" Sailor Obsidia asked with rage in her voice. "This waste of a planet? This place where children are abandoned, put in orphanages, abused, left to fend for themselves!" She shouted out the end of her sentence as the glow around her increased. She began to rise up off the floor but her legs remained relaxed as they extended below her rising body. "Abandoned! Like you abandoned me on Nemesis! You never came back for me!" she shouted, "and when I came for you, you denied me! Now you are abandoning me again!"

The room around them began to shake as the obsidian stone at the center of her brooch dislodged itself and floated out in front of her chest. Sailor Obsidia lifted her hands to surround the stone as she brought it level with her eyes. The air around them erupted in violent swirls and the soldiers moved into defensive positions. Sailor Astera shielded her eyes from flying debris caught up in the storm.

"I don't care what use I am to anyone anymore!" Sailor Obsidia said, "I am my own! And I will exact my revenge on everyone that stands in my way. Move out of the way Sailor Astera, I will show you I am a true soldier!"

"I cannot allow you to do that," Sailor Astera said.

"Then you will die like the rest!" Sailor Obsidia's stone erupted with one rippling explosion of dark energy that engulfed her whole body in a swirling blue blaze. Mars, Juptier, Venus, Mercury and Tuxedo Mask formed a close circle around Sailor Moon. The power of the Ginzuishou had rebuilt her Cutie Moon Rod and she clutched it tightly in her gloved hands. Sailor Astera backed up to stand with Demitrius who took a defensive stance slightly in front of her.

"I see how it is," Obsidia said scathingly, "anything for the ones you love." She twisted the last word with sarcasm and raised the obsidian stone above her head.

"Aphotic Radence!"

The dark energy around Sailor Obsidia swelled so violently at the call of the attack that Sailor Moon had visions of her friends being ripped apart by the force of the coming blast. Demitrius stepped fully in front of Sailor Astera and raised his arms to form whatever protective field her could create for his princess.

No blast ever came. The senshi watched with shock as the dark power imploded on Sailor Obsidia, trapping her within her own most powerful attack. She screamed wildly as the blazing blue fire seared her skin and outfit and sent her writhing to the floor.

"She's given up too much power," Sailor Astera shouted over the blaze of the attack, "I have to save her!" Demitrius watched in horror as Sailor Astera threw herself into the blue flames. A bright purple light erupted from her golden tiara as she embraced the Sailor Obsidia and tried to free her from the flames.

It quickly became apparent that she would not succeed.

"Sailor Moon!" Sailor Mars said, "can you do anything?"

Sailor Moon shook her head sadly, "I've used all the power I can to heal Astera," she said, "if I go on..."

Demitrius turned to Tuxedo Mask and their eyes met with understanding. "Anything to save her," was all he said softly before he too lunged into the core of the attack.

Golden light rays suddenly burst from the attack in every direction. A bubble of violet light blasted from the center of the attack and grew until it filled the entire space, sending the remaining outer structure of the walls falling to the ground. Sailor Moon clutched Tuxedo Mask as a bright white light from the full moon burst from the clouds above. She shielded her eyes as she tried to see. Could anyone have survived that explosion?

The white light silhouetted the figures floating just outside the edge of the broken building. The senshi stepped aside as Sailor Moon walked forward towards them. "Sailor Astera?" she asked.

The light around them faded slightly. Demitrius touched down back onto the floor. In his arms he held a unconscious dark haired girl wrapped in his cloak. Tuxedo Mask walked forward to help the weakened guardian with the weight. Sailor Moon looked to the other figure and was quite surprised at what she saw.

Atop her head a golden halo spun slowly. At its center, a pure white lotus flower floated emanating a holy light. Sailor Moon looked into the clear light purple eyes, then tried to see the new soldier's outfit. However, before she or the others were able to get a good look at it, a bright light surrounded the new soldier and hid her from view once again. When she returned, her form had changed once again.

Sailor Astera landed softly beside Demitrius and nodded to him with affection. Her outfit was something between her healed appearance and the form of which the others had just caught a glimpse. Her purple skirt was lined with a thick golden striped, while a mesh lace petticoat rippled below it. Within her light purple brooch, the symbol of Astera glimmered as three pronged purple bows fluttered into place around it. Tri-petaled lotus symbols adorned her purple boots and golden tiara. Her long, thin bow tails glistened with golden light in the moonlight and her sheer light purple sleeves echoed the shape of her bows as they lifted slightly in the breeze. She raised her gloved hands to brush the dark hair away from the forehead of the girl Tuxedo Mask now held.

"What happened?" Sailor Mercury asked, "Is that Sailor Obsidia?"

Sailor Astera went to Demitrius and clasped his hand, "On the planet of Astera, my father Yukio took my powers away from me. From my soul, he withdrew half of the powers of a soldier and replaced the missing part with his dark power. This girl was an innocent bystander. Adopted by the King, she was meant to be a pawn in his game, a back up for his plan. Half of my powers were bestowed upon her without her request or consent. Supplemented by his dark energy, she was able to take on the form of Sailor Obsidia. In all that time, her true spirit remained trapped within her obsidian stone."

"The power of her attack shattered the stone," Demitrius said, "when the dark energy was released, her true spirit returned."

"My full powers have now been reunited within my soul, the essence of the soldier of Astera is whole again," Sailor Astera concluded.

"So, will Obsidia - I mean, Anya - live?" Sailor Moon asked gratefully.

Sailor Astera nodded, "But she will need a new name, someone to guide her reborn soul."

"Wait," Sailor Venus said, "you aren't staying?"

"There's no way I could," she replied, "the core of my powers is still signifigantly weakened. I have no planet to call home, no place to defend. My mission is a mystery now; I will return to the source of all things to seek my destiny. This time, my powers are whole and I can make the journey."

"You won't go alone," Demitrius said. "I have so much for which I need to repent. I will go with you."

"You could both call Earth home," Sailor Moon suggested, throwing her arms wide in welcome. The other soldiers nodded in reply, but they could see that Astera would not be persuaded to stay.

"I hope you understand," she said, "there is something else I have to seek out there." She turned and looked towards the star spattered sky, the others gazed into the endless night. Sailor Astera turned back to the dark haired girl and placed a loving kiss on her cheek. "Will you watch over her for me?" she asked. Sailor Moon nodded in reply. "Thank you so much," Astera said, "for everything."

"You are always welcome here," Sailor Moon said, reaching out to touch Astera's hand. The two soldiers clasped their fingers together silently for a moment. Then, with a smile, Sailor Astera and Demitrius floated off the edge of the building into the bright moonlight.

"There is so much darkness in the universe, Sailor Moon," she said, "your presence is our beacon of hope." With that, she and Demitrius wrapped their arms around one another. Their auras became one and in a streak of lavender light into the glimmering night, they were gone.

**Epilogue**

"Kiyoko! Are you here?" Usagi called out through the open sliding door into the temple.

"I'll be right there!" a happy voice called out from inside somewhere, "just give me a second." Usagi smiled and sat down to wait. Today marked the fifth day since Kiyoko had been saved from her father's dark powers and released from the burden of flames that had been placed upon her. Kiyoko, Usagi thought, was the prefect choice for a new name, though it had been Rei's idea after all. Pure and clean was the perfect way to describe the girl that had been cleansed of all that darkness. She had been staying at the temple, but today the girls were taking her to her new home.

Rei came around the corner from the other side of the temple and was surprised to see Usagi there on time. "I talked to Grampa again this morning about leaving us alone today," she told Usagi. "He's really driving me crazy."

"He really wants Kiyoko to stay with you guys, huh?" Usagi said.

"Yeah, but for all the wrong reasons," Rei grumbled.

"Well, it was nice of him to find a job for her," Usagi said, "and a place to stay."

Rei smiled. "Yeah, the temple she's going to is really small, but the family that runs it is getting really old and they have no children. She will be greatly welcomed; they are old friends of Grampa."

"I would think any of Grampa's friends would be old..." Usagi said absentmindedly and they laughed as the dark blue haired girl popped out from the doorway.

"Ready to go!" Kiyoko said. Usagi and Rei were very happy to see her like this. It was really a miracle that she had come out of the whole ordeal. She remembered nothing of the battle or her early life; it was as if she had been truly given another chance. They had told her the stories about her past, but with variations that made it a little more plain and ordinary. As far as Kiyoko knew, her father and mother and sister had been killed in a large explosion caused by a meteor that had left her as the only survivor. To her, Sailor Obsidia had never existed. For Usagi, it was a little hard to lie to her, but they all knew it was for the best. This was the chance they had all lost: the chance to live a normal life.

"Are you guys okay?" Kiyoko asked, looking at their spaced out faces.

"Oh yeah, totally!" Usagi laughed, breaking out of her thoughts, "You ready?"

"Absolutely!" Kiyoko said with a big grin. She carried with her a small duffle bag full of the few things she had been given by the girls: a hair brush and blue ribbon from Minako, a temple robe from Rei, a cooking apron from Makoto, and a book from Ami (Managing with Math: A Beginner's Guide to Good Business!). Around her neck was clasped a golden chain with a simple pendant hanging from the bottom. Encased in the golden heart were two gems, an amethyst and an obsidian stone. This had been Usagi's gift. Kiyoko couldn't explain why, but this gift had been her favorite.

The temple was just as she had imagined, small and out of the way, but with enough visitors to keep them busy. Though she'd only been with the girls a few days and knew that they were just intermediary strangers helping her along in life, Kiyoko had felt a strong connection to them. It was a tearful goodbye.

"You know, we're going to be around," Rei said. "I promised Grampa I would come by a few days a week to help you learn the ropes."

"Really?" Kiyoko asked.

"Of course!" Usagi said, "we're friends now, right?"

Kiyoko nodded, "Yeah, we definitely are. Thank you so much for all you're doing for me. Really," she said, "I would be completely lost without you. I know my family must be very grateful to you as well."

"Most of them, maybe.." Usagi said kind of awkwardly which resulted in an elbow jab from Rei.

"Well anyway!" Rei said laughing and changing the subject, "you know where to find me! I will be back tomorrow afternoon!" Kiyoko smiled and nodded and the girls said goodbye. Rei and Usagi then proceeded back to the temple to meet up with the other girls and the cats who were just arriving.

"How did it go?" Minako asked.

"She settled in all right?" Makoto added.

"Yep, all is well," Usagi said, plopping down on the porch.

"Do you think we are doing the right thing," Ami asked, "you know, by not telling her the truth?"

"I think so," Luna said, "for now anyway. Maybe as time goes by, we can start to reveal some of it to her. But at this time I think it would be just too much for her. She needs time to find herself again."

"If experience tells us anything, she will probably start to remember some of it on her own," Usagi added. "But I think we are doing the right thing. She will be okay, we'll make sure of that."

"So," Minako said, "What's the meeting for?"

"Well," Artemis said, "nothing specific to discuss, we just thought it would be nice to get together without a lot of hard work to do."

"Yeah?" Usagi said, "Sounds great!" She laid back on the porch and stared up at the lazy clouds floating by.

After a few moments of silence, Ami broke the lazy silence. "You know, I read an article in Science Today this morning that caught my interest."

"Oh?" Luna said. "What about?"

"Researchers in Astronomy are suggesting that there may be planets that exist in our solar system that we aren't aware of yet. It kind of reminded me of, you know, certain theories we've already heard. But this time, it's being talked about seriously." Usagi sat up.

"Yeah, but I don't think we have anything to worry about," Minako said with enthusiastic optimism. "Just because there's a planet, that doesn't mean there's a soldier. Look at Saturn, and the other planets out there! Other than that surprise of meeting Sailor Pluto, there are no other sailor senshi!"

"Yeah," Makoto said, "that's a good point. I'm sure she would've mentioned it."

"Excellent," Usagi said, laying back down on the porch, "Then, I guess we've got nothing to worry about."

**The End!**

**Please feel free to leave your thoughts :3 **


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